The new Samsung Galaxy Buds Pro certainly made a big impression. Introduced last month, these wireless earbuds offer impressive Active Noise Cancellation (ANC), improved audio quality, and new features including speech recognition that automatically turns the ANC off whenever the user speaks. Now Samsung has revealed more details on how these new buds and the biggest hurdles in packing so much technology into such a small device came about.
Speaking to Express.co.uk Master Han-gil Moon, head of the Advanced Audio Lab, mobile communications business at Samsung Electronics, explains how the company has worked to improve the audio credentials of these latest Buds, and how they can become one of the fully waterproof materials are among the toughest challenges.
“The Buds Pro takes about two years to develop,” said Moon.
“There are three stages of development. The first stage is to develop a device with good sound quality. We make sure that this device reflects all the improvements that we have seen with our previous Buds products.
“Once this device is developed, we install it in the buds and tune it until it’s just perfect. We then get feedback from our Samsung audio experts so we can really fine-tune and optimize the audio quality. The final stage of development is in order to do user testing, we make sure we provide quality audio to users. “
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Samsung has been making earbuds for a few years, but the Buds Pro has tons of new features, including an improved ANC that turns off immediately as soon as the user starts talking.
Getting the earbuds to understand exactly who was speaking is one of the qualities Moon is most proud of, but it was also difficult to master.
“One of the biggest challenges was making sure that only the voice that was supposed to be recognized is recognized,” said Moon.
“What drove us to introduce this new feature is that since we launched Buds Live we have committed to improving call quality. One of the things we implemented was a Voice Pickup Unit (VPU), which is an accelerometer The user speaks that the energy is causing vibrations in your head and the VPU can pick up those vibrations.
“Samsung was the company that had some of the best knowledge of how this sensor worked and that’s how we introduced speech recognition.”
But why did Samsung make this such a priority? Well, it seems that users wanted an easier way to turn sound blocking off and it was this feedback that led to the changes.
“We listened to customers’ voices regarding their inconvenience with the ANC experience. One of the biggest issues we heard was that when they turned on noise cancellation they sometimes make conversations difficult. We then thought VPU might be.” Solution to this pain point. “
In addition to the challenge of understanding voices, Samsung also had to work hard to make the Buds Pro fully waterproof.
“Yes, it was a challenge. To implement IPX7, we had to design and develop our speakers and microphones from scratch,” said Moon.
“When you look at a lot of waterproof speakers and microphones on the market, the sound quality tends to be degraded. Our goal was really to provide waterproof quality while also providing maximum audio quality.”
While the Buds Pro are packed with features, some have criticized the shorter battery life and the fact that they work best in the Samsung ecosystem.
To address those concerns, Moon said, “Yes, you can say Buds Pro reduced battery life compared to Buds + when you enable ANC. However, when you turn ANC off, Buds Pro actually guarantees that battery life will be that long is like Buds +. It’s really up to the consumer to decide. Slightly reduced battery life when using ANC will not cause too much inconvenience to our consumers, but consumers can really benefit from the better sound quality and performance and the more perfect ANC in ours System benefit Buds Pro. “
Another criticism of Pro is the fact that it works best in the Samsung ecosystem, so iPhone and other Android users can miss out on some of the best features.
“Hence the name Galaxy Bud Pro. Our goal was to develop a product that would offer the best possible experience in the Galaxy ecosystem. However, the Galaxy Buds Pro complies with the Bluetooth standard, so you can use any device or smartphone with Bluetooth Use the function Use Buds Pro and enjoy the great audio experience.
“You can download the Galaxy Wearable app on Android and it will give you additional features like ambient sounds and game mode.”
What’s next from Samsung, and what big innovations will the company bring to market in the future?
Moon wouldn’t reveal Samsung’s upcoming plans, but did explain how the company is responding to what its users want and how this will affect future products.
“Our current innovations have all been driven by the needs and voices of our users. I am convinced that our next innovation will also come from the needs of existing Buds users. Our goal is to give them great sound quality, call quality and a perfect ANC to offer .
“It is also getting smarter to better understand our users and provide the services they want.”
