The premise for the UWB technology to explode is to enter the mobile phone. Now UWB chips have gradually matured, and the biggest obstacle for UWB chips to enter the mobile phone is to convince mobile phone manufacturers which scenarios need to use UWB.
At present, UWB digital car key is a deterministic application scenario. More and more models have UWB digital car key functions. Now some models with a price of less than 200,000 yuan on the market have begun to use UWB digital keys.
In addition to car keys, another scenario where mobile phone UWB can be used frequently may be "subway non-contact payment gate".
This scenario has been preheated in the industry for several years, and recently, the world's first commercial project-Shenzhen Yunba Line 1 was landed.
1.Why NXP at the chip level
There are many UWB chip players and they have started commercial use. Among them, there are many UWB chip manufacturers that value the scenario of contactless payment at subway gates. The final chip manufacturer chosen for this project is NXP. The main reason is that NXP's UWB chip performance is the best in this scenario.
2.There are too few mobile terminals at present
When will UWB enter Android phones (Apple phones are already standard)? This has always been a hot topic in the industry. In the global market, Samsung's Galaxy S series and Google's Pixel phones have already used UWB chips on a large scale, but in the domestic Android market, progress is relatively slow. The biggest concern of mobile phone manufacturers about implanting UWB chips is that they are afraid that after adding this chip, there will be few scenarios in the market where it can be used.
Among domestic mobile phone manufacturers, although Meizu has a small shipment volume, it is one of the earliest mobile phone manufacturers to use UWB chips, so this Shenzhen Yunba project is also the first to use Meizu phones for adaptation.
In the future, other mobile phones and products with payment functions such as watches and bracelets will only need to adapt to the software vendors if they want to experience the touchless payment function after adding UWB chips.
3.UWB touchless payment is a small investment, but it can leverage a large market
In summary, UWB touchless payment is a basic investment that is not large, but it can leverage a large market.
Because for the subway operator, the increased cost is mainly the upgrade and transformation of the gate. It is understood that at the hardware level, it is only necessary to add UWB modules to the current subway gates, and more upgrade work is at the software and system level.
If only one module is added, even if the unit price of such a module product is more expensive, the overall hardware investment cost is not large.
However, such a small investment is a great help in leveraging the popularization of UWB chips on mobile phones. Because subway gates are definitely a high-frequency use scenario for the general public, coupled with the popularization of digital car key scenarios, the popularization of UWB on mobile phones has more sufficient reasons.
Although the progress of popularization of UWB chips in domestic Android phones in 2024 is a bit disappointing, with the increasing number of UWB-based application scenarios, it is worth being optimistic about the addition of UWB chips to mobile phones next year.
This paper is from Ulink Media, Shenzhen, China, the organizer of IOTE EXPO (IoT Expo in China)
