How the wearable device market is breaking, ADI points out a way

“Bezos once said a word: Many people are concerned about what will change in the next ten years, and they chase the changes, but he asks himself more about what will remain the same in the next ten years.” ADI China Product Division He Yuan, senior market application manager, said at the “EEVIA 10th Annual China Hard Technology Media Forum and 2022 Industry Chain Research and Innovation Trend Prospect Seminar”.

Wearable devices are a hot technology now, and ten years later, their status is still unshakable, and they have excellent market prospects. At the intersection of wearable development, how should we view the wearable market? How can semiconductor manufacturers do well in the wearable market? He Yuan shared ADI’s experience.

Overall wearable market

Each sub-segment of wearables has different characteristics.

The wearable earphone market is very introverted, from research and development to sales to marketing, and even some in Huaqiangbei, Shenzhen, and some white-label markets are already very hot.

From the numbers, you can spy on one or two. Since 2017, the growth of wearable earphones has been very large; under the influence of many factors, the growth rate will begin to slow down in 2021; in 2022, global market shipments may decrease.

From the current point of view, the wearable earphone market is very similar to the mobile phone market more than ten years ago. The brand market occupies the main force. This is also a signal. This market can basically be considered to be stable and mature.

China, India, Europe, and the United States are the four major consumer regions for wearable headphones. In the past two quarters, there is an obvious feature. The volume in Europe and the United States has declined slightly. China is basically unchanged, and India has grown very fast. That is to say, the main force of the market is now shifting to Asia and East Asia. Relatively speaking, the market in Europe and the United States is almost saturated.

The main application scenarios of VR are games, entertainment, social networking, metaverse, etc. The VR equipment market is in the ascendant. In fact, before 2020, the VR market is very flat, and there will be no major waves until 2020. Changes; there will be a breakthrough in 2021 Sexual progress, sales exceeded 10 million units; it is expected to increase by 40% to 50% in 2022. It is believed that in the next five years, the compound annual growth rate of the VR market will reach more than 40%.

AR equipment focuses on industrial applications, not entertainment. For example, some industrial training, or industrial maintenance, remote guidance, and on-site workers can do many operations through AR equipment. From a numerical point of view, this market can be 500 US dollars as a gear, and the shipments below 500 US dollars (within 3500 RMB) account for 97% of the shipments, indicating that the high-end and mid-end markets are far from mature, unlike the movie ” “Ready Player One” is so cool, many problems have not been solved, and the duration, resolution, dizziness, and delay have not been solved. In addition, low-end products within 3,000 yuan are the main players in the market. Although the application is very limited, the picture quality and brightness are already very good. .

AR/VR devices have a lot of room for imagination, such as adding a lot of sensors, applying a lot of algorithms, and making them lightweight enough to use a large number of sensors to monitor in real time during the wearing process, record and sort out the psychology of watching movies and playing games Status, health status, and even professional advice.

However, AR/VR equipment is very computationally demanding, so the entire process and technology are moving towards the top nodes. Now the AR/VR device chip manufacturing process on the market is 5nm or less, which is determined by computing power and battery, and a very high process must be done to improve battery life.

The smart watch industry is rare in the consumer market that can maintain a steady rise. From 2020 to 2021 and 2022, total shipments will increase by double digits, and the proportion of brands will also increase, much like the headphone market that was maturing three or five years ago.

Interestingly, China accounts for the well-deserved number one share of the smartwatch market, reaching 28%. In terms of global share, Europe and the United States are declining, India is rising, and China is rising and has the largest market share.

For example, go home tonight to check your steps, and you’ll trust your watch more than your phone. Because the mobile phone will be separated from you, but as long as the watch has electricity, it will faithfully record your every moment status. For another example, a watch can also be combined with different scenarios such as a car. In any case, the watch may be connected to the scene where it is located, and this connection can greatly improve the ability of information aggregation, and then parse a lot of useful information.

In the process of purchasing a smartwatch, battery life is a big factor. Interestingly, consumers need both high computing power and long battery life, but the current relationship between computing power and battery is a contradiction, which requires powerful chips to support.

Which directions of wearable devices are worth paying attention to? The pursuit of health by human beings is unchanged, and health must be a general trend.

Health is a direction worth paying attention to

Health-oriented functions will be an opportunity for wearable devices.

In fact, the monitoring of physical health status has great potential. He Yuan said that many people think that using light, smart watches can detect heart rate, and do not need a good signal-to-noise ratio, but in fact, many research institutions want to measure more information in blood by light, such as measuring blood sugar, Blood routine-related items, and even abnormal proteins in blood, can be captured by light, which has strong potential and room for development.

In this case, the form of the wearable device is not limited to the above form.

For example, if your heart is not good to go to the hospital, the doctor will recommend that you wear a device that measures the electrocardiogram for 72 hours, which is also a wearable device. Many people are discharged from the hospital, and they will wear an RPM (remote monitoring) device when they are discharged, which also belongs to the scope of wearable devices. In addition, the device that monitors the oxygen level in the mine is also a wearable device.

Second, wearables will also have different platforms.

For example, there may be two development trends for watches. One is to develop heavy-duty, using very complex chips and algorithms, with powerful functions, but the battery life is not very good, which is equivalent to a small mobile phone; the other is to focus on battery life, only Controlling everything with an embedded microcontroller can achieve excellent battery life and cost a lot. From the current industry situation, foreign countries prefer the former, while domestic ones prefer light watches.

Technology has changed life, wearable devices are coming, and health monitoring functions are becoming more and more important. So to make healthy products, we must consider the accuracy of monitoring and the effectiveness of algorithms.

To make a good product, choosing the right chip is a prerequisite.

As a company established in 1965, ADI has been focusing on mixed-signal processing and other technologies since its establishment. It has deep accumulation in data conversion and analog/digital signal processing, making ADI chips and solutions, to the greatest extent possible, Solve these problems from the system level.

What’s more worth mentioning is that in order to better serve local customers, ADI has established a China Product Division, with localized design, development and support of the whole chain, with multiple advantages in technology, service and supply, and can provide 24-hour response.

From the establishment of the first-generation ADPD4XXX in 2020 to the ADPD6000, which has been mass-produced in 2022, more solutions will be implemented in the future, and will be strengthened to varying degrees in many fields.

ADI’s sensor analog front end can be divided into two parts.

One part is the optical path part, the contraction and expansion of blood vessels will change, and the information collected by reflected light can be judged, which can be used to collect heart rate information. This part is extremely difficult, because different weights, different wearing tightness, and other factors such as body hair, tattoos, scars, etc. can affect the accuracy of the collection. ADI’s products provide extremely high signal-to-noise ratios, ensuring signal quality and measurable coverage. In different situations, such as light leakage, ambient light interference, and dynamic light artifacts, ADI also provides a complete set of solutions for dynamic interference suppression, which can be adapted to more environments and test conditions.

The other is the electrode part, which will have many problems, such as dry skin in cold winter, and loose skin of older users. In these cases, no results can be measured. ADI provides reliable, stable and mature professional-grade architecture technology and unique patented technology, which can ensure the measurement accuracy of impedance, adapt to more application scenarios, and is almost immune to complex external variables, suitable for ECG measurement, body fat measurement .

ADI also provides board support for development, including software, hardware, and algorithms, which can be obtained on the ADI official website, and can even be customized according to different needs of users.

ADI is a company that uses professionalism to make professionalism more professional. He Yuan concluded.