AntennaWare and Shenzen Skylark Audio Industrial Co to produce world’s first next gen UWB headset commercially available to OEMs

Belfast, UK – Sept 2023 – Announced at IBC, specialist wireless audio ODM Shenzen Skylark Audio Industrial Co (Skylark) have signed a partnership agreement with innovative antenna company AntennaWare to develop a next generation UWB headset incorporating AntennaWare’s BodyWave™ UWB antenna.

UWB offers outstanding features for audio applications including low latency and data payload, resulting in sub 10ms end to end latency with Hi Res audio. However, problems occur with UWB when placed close to the body with audio connection becoming unstable. AntennaWare’s BodyWave antenna directly address these problems, unlocking the full potential of UWB for wireless audio applications such as headsets, wireless mics and IEMs.

World Elite’s reference design is the world’s first UWB headset that is commercially available to OEM’s considering next generation headset designs.

By 2027 worldwide shipments for headsets is projected to be almost one billion devices with a value of $35 billion and compound annual growth rate of 7.9%. These devices will mostly suffer from poor latency performance and sub-optimal quality due to both the transport layer and audio compression algorithms used.

However, implementing UWB as a radio and AntennaWare’s UWB BodyWave™ antenna will directly result in a significant audio experience improvement for the user.

Skylark has been developing and innovating wireless audio products for 10 years. Skylark Founder Ms Summy explained,

“We have witnessed the rise of TWS earphones based on Bluetooth technology and their acceptance by consumers. However, better audio experience has always been the pursuit of consumers and so we are always looking for better wireless audio transmission technology. The emergence of UWB audio technology meets the need for improved audio transmission technology and we continue to explore this technology and create better audio experiences for users.

With that in mind, we are happy to formalize our relationship with AntennaWare and believe that working together to develop this next-gen headset design incorporating BodyWave UWB antenna will ensure we are the first to offer OEMs a UWB headset to significantly improve the users’ wireless audio experience. UWB technology offers high bandwidth, low latency and anti-interference, providing better audio quality and reduced latency compared to Bluetooth, and Skylark is committed to developing innovative UWB audio products and bring better audio experiences to users.”

AntennaWare CEO and Co-founder Dr Gareth Conway comments, “In Skylark we have found a partner whose aim it is to bring innovative audio products to the market. We are pleased they have chosen BodyWave antennas to solve the body blocking challenged experienced by UWB devices that have stunted its adoption up to now and that we can help them uncover the full potential of UWB for audio applications.”

About Shenzen Skylark Audio Industrial Co Ltd

Skylark Audio, established at Longgang, Shenzhen in 2014 with headquarters and R&D centre at Shenzhen, a factory at Dongguan plus logistics centres in Hong Kong. Specializing in microphones and musical instruments products, Skylark have been working with customers from overseas and China to deliver over 3 million units. With over 360 employees, Skylark provide one stop design and manufacturing service for customers.

About AntennaWare
Formed in 2020 by Dr Matthew Magill and Dr Gareth Conway as a spin-out from Queens University, Belfast, AntennaWare combines 20 years of cutting-edge academic research with industry expertise to produce an effective and powerful product. As the only antenna specifically designed for wireless wearables, BodyWave™ antenna technology has the highest performance on the market, with increased radiation efficiency, increased detuning immunity, and unique BodyWave propagation. The BodyWave product range includes Bluetooth, UWB and DECT.