First acquaintance with Oadance
"Innovation sometimes requires getting off the beaten path and diving into the forest, and you're sure to discover something you've never seen before."
"TWS has reached a point where change and innovation are needed, and we are innovators."
This is an article I saw when I consulted the Oladance brand, which wrote about the speech of Li Haoqian, the founder of Oladance. In addition to giving me a preliminary understanding of Oladance's products and brands, it also makes me feel respectful, and at a time when the TWS industry is very mature and can be effortlessly integrated products to the market, there are some people who are making some different products, which is really cool. This reminds me of Meizu and Lao Luo, who are still moving forward despite the difficult road ahead.
Oladance was founded in 2019 by former BOSE executive Haoqian Li and 8 former BOSE engineers and 2 former Phitek engineers. As one of the world's first technicians engaged in ANC's active noise reduction work, it has a very big advantage in product technology and has the most cutting-edge vision of the audio industry. If you can carefully read The official website of Oladance, WeChat articles, etc., you will find that this is really a trendy, fashionable, avant-garde brand, and a technology brand that can give you a different sensory experience.
OWS is different from TWS
OWS is a new fully open and deaf sound solution proposed by Oladance for the first time globally. Full name "OPEN WEARABLE STEREO" i.e. "Open Wearable Stereo System"
"OWS" and "TWS", "True Wireless Stereo" or "True Wireless Stereo" are only one letter apart from the abbreviation, but the meaning is completely different. The former refers to wearable, and the latter refers to true wireless.
The advantages of "OWS" technology are:
1, do not enter the ear, wear comfortable without burden, do not give the ear pressure
2, no barrier, open design, not isolated from the outside environment sound
3. No sound leakage, dynamic synthesis of sound source, directional transmission of sound, and suppression of sound leakage
3. No damage, reduce hearing damage, and avoid ear canal health problems
Before the "OWS" was proposed, aside from the various artifacts of the era of wired headphones, many manufacturers are trying not to enter the ear design on TWS headphones, the earliest should be bone conduction headphones, sound waves directly through the bones to the auditory nerve, do not hurt the eardrum, is a very ideal way, but its defects are also more obvious, one is a sense of vibration, the second is the loss of sound transmission, and the third is the sound leakage. Wearable traditional sound unit design, mostly used in smart glasses and other wearable devices, the past two years there are also many brands of open headphones are very hot, SONY open Ear Duo and Link Buds modeling and sound mode are brain holes, but it still uses the design of the ear, but the sound unit in the middle of a hole, than Samsung's Galaxy Buds Live to open up. Another ambie headphones are more interesting, like jewelry clipped to the ear, but because of the small size, the sound unit is limited, and it is far from the ear hole, so the sound transmission loss is large, the volume is small, and the sound leakage is serious. BOSE Sport Open Earbuds is an earlier hanging ear open design, there is also a Clear ARC, from the design to the storage package is simply a one-to-one copy of Bose, Oladance OWS design and BOSE Sport Open Earbuds have many similarities, but the details and design are improved over BOSE. Open headphones are still in their infancy, and more technology is needed to optimize and allow such products to mature slowly.
The first Oladance OWS device
Oladance "OWS" The first device finally met with you after 2 years of continuous polishing, equipped with the first generation of "OWS" technology product form it is expected to break through the existing TWS form dilemma.
Oladance "OWS" uses a white packaging box, the front is the product picture, the pattern varies according to different colors, this is "Deep Blue Atoll", Oladance provides "Daylight Dawn (white), Xingxing Silver (silver), Dark Blue Atoll (blue), Lava Flow Orange (orange)" 4 unique colors for choice. Personally, I feel that the "Star Silver Universe" is more tonal. The product name "Oladance Wearable Private Speaker" in the upper left corner of the box can be seen, which can be seen that the positioning of this product is clearly different from that of TWS headphones.
The package is also relatively simple: Oladance Wearable Stereo wearable private speaker, charging case, Type-C charging cable, user guide and promotional brochure
Stylish design and comfortable to wear
The overall style of Oladance "OWS" is rounded, with an ear-mounted wearing design, the shape is ergonomically designed, the main unit and the battery are separated, and the multi-point support principle is used to disperse the wearing pressure, so that it remains balanced and hangs firmly on the ear after wearing.
The fuselage is made of dual-material splicing, covering the place where it touches the skin with skin-friendly texture silicone, the interior is made of titanium memory steel wire, and the outside of the fuselage is a bright plastic shell, which is very finely worked and supports IPX4 waterproofing. With a glass touch panel, that is, the LOGO area on the front, touch operation can be realized. There is a MIC hole on the upper and lower sides, and a bar tuning hole on the outside for sound leakage suppression. The inside of the fuselage is also very simple, four metal charging contacts, a large sound outlet, and a tilt design, after wearing, it can be aimed at the ear hole to direct the sound, greatly reducing the sound transmission loss.
Oladance "OWS" fuselage has a strong sense of integration, the starting point of everything is to purely optimize the wearing feeling, try to be insensitive, reduce the sense of weight wearing, so that the ear can more easily enjoy the music itself, without the need to let the ear withstand the flooding and ear pressure caused by the ear headphones. Wearing it for a long time will not cause discomfort, pressure, and will also reduce the damage caused by hearing. And after wearing, it does not block communication with the outside world, without using the opening of the ambient sound, transparency mode to achieve, all the sound is really delivered to the ear.
Colleagues praised it after wearing it...
Wearing experience:
Comfortable to wear, really much more comfortable than in-ear headphones, especially for a long time, without pain and pressure. You don't need to take it off to hear outside sounds, saving a lot of inconvenience. The continuous shaking of the head headphones has a subsequent swing, bringing the illusion of falling, but it still lies on the ear and does not fall off, and can catch the ear. Use under glasses or masks also does not affect the wearing experience. IPX4-rated waterproof splashes also eliminate the need to worry about sweating or showering.
Seamless listening and worry-free leakage
Oladance "OWS" built-in 16.5mm bio-high-tech membrane dynamic unit, this size has not yet been TWS can be installed, and the quality of this full-band dynamic unit absolutely do not have to worry, because after all, the former BOSE executive team, with many years of industry experience accumulation, coupled with the fuselage space is relatively large sound cavity layout, hardware on the presentation of sound has great advantages, in order to achieve immersive sound quality experience, in the software is also equipped with a number of acoustic technologies; such as "virtual bass". Dynamic EQ", "Harmful Band Shifting Technology".
Open headphones are mainly worried about two points; one is to leak sound, and the other is that the sound is easily damaged by interference. Low frequencies are easily diffuse by air barriers, and Oladance has added a low-frequency power amplifier circuit to the hardware for the "virtual bass" technology studied by Oladance, which compensates for the low frequency segments that disappear due to high resonance frequencies and air barriers through software algorithms, so that the bass restoration is richer and fuller." Dynamic EQ" dynamically adjusts and optimizes the sound output of each frequency according to different sound frequencies, scenes, and volume to achieve a more balanced sound quality performance. Harmful Band Shift technology automatically identifies and moves hearing-impaired frequency bands in audio, reducing ear hearing loss.
The sound performance of Oladance "OWS" can be described in two words, that is, "natural" and "loose". The performance of the soundstage and the in-ear TWS open up the gap, the vertical and horizontal are relatively open, the low frequency is full, the atmosphere is sufficient, the diving and transient retraction are appropriate, the elasticity is not strong, the instrumental separation is general, and the knot is a bit more close to the face. The mid-frequency is loose, not transparent enough, the vocals are far away, and they are still delicate. The high frequencies are bright and clear, without burrs. The overall sound performance is relatively conservative, and the highlight is that the low frequency increases the compensation, so that the expression of the voice is more emotional and more durable.
The tuning of Oladance "OWS" is like a sound, creating a thick, open, bass-strong, high-frequency style. Coupled with the addition of ambient sounds, you can be closer to the real. Just like the same song, the experience brought by the original version and the LIVE version is different, which is better to listen to, depending on the environment and people listening to the song.
For the solution of sound leakage, Oladance also adopts both soft and hard, one is the "directional conduction" technology on the hardware, based on the ergonomic design of the wearing, and design the tilt angle of the sound mouth, so that the sound conduction more effectively reaches the ear canal, reducing external diffusion. The other is "sound wave cancellation technology", through the dynamic monitoring and calculation of the sound source, the formation of a synthetic sound source, the internal transmission of sound sources to enhance the sound quality, the external transmission of signals opposite to the sound source 180 °, canceling the sound transmitted to the outside world, so as to achieve directional transmission of air conduction. This is also an important patent of Oladance. In the actual experience, in the relatively quiet environment in the office, outsiders cannot hear the sound from 10 centimeters away, and the content played cannot be heard clearly from 5 centimeters away.
Under the fully open sound experience, all the sounds from the outside world are transmitted to the ear in their original form, and will not be like the ambient sound or transparency mode of the TWS headphones, which will be picked up by the MIC and then passed into the ear, which will not bring additional noise floor, nor will there be a sense of estrangement, which is very real.
Under the noise reduction optimization of the two MICs, the Oladance "OWS" has a more natural call effect than the in-ear headphones, and it is very convenient to communicate with others at the same time when talking. There is also no illusion that you need to raise your voice while listening to a song and communicating with others.
Sound Experience:
The sound is durable, the atmosphere feels bitten, the details are restored, the bass is relatively full, the call and music experience are very natural, the ambient sound is synchronized in real time, without secondary conversion, and the sense of realism is strong. In everyday scenarios, whether listening to songs, watching movies, listening to lectures or playing games, "OWS" can bring a more comfortable experience.
I hope that the "volume perception adjustment" can be added in the later stage, if from indoor to outdoor, the ambient sound will increase to a great extent, because of the open design, the sound of the headphones will be covered by the ambient sound, if the ambient volume is monitored according to the MIC, the volume will be gained when the change exceeds the threshold, then the experience will be more coherent.
Anxiety-free battery life with double capacity to carry
The battery capacity of the Oladance "OWS" is up to 160mAh, and the battery life can reach 16 hours in a single time, which is close to 4 times the battery life of ordinary TWS headphones. It is precisely because of the ultra-long endurance performance, its own volume and weight has been slightly heavier, so the random only equipped with a storage box, and there is no battery compartment, the storage box only provides wired charging function, if you add wireless charging to fill the gap should be more acceptable to consumers. Of course, Oladance still provides a choice of battery compartments, which need to be purchased separately, and can achieve 94 hours of battery life when used together.
The design of the Oladance "OWS" storage box is also very simple, with a volume of 130 * 48 * 26.5 (mm), which is twice as large as that of ordinary TWS headphones. The storage box has a slightly frosted texture throughout, and the brand logo of the metal texture is in the middle of the lid, reflecting different colors under different light effects, which may be the only design on this black box. There is a breathing light on the front side of the storage box to indicate the charging status, and the two sides of the middle depression are slightly protruding for easy opening and closing. On the rear side is a TYPE-C charging port. Also open the box lid immediately linked, the speed is quite fast.
After a period of use, the battery life performance is indeed as strong as advertised, about two hours of use every day, and it is not enough for a week to indicate insufficient battery. If equipped with a charging pod to use, non-heavy use that is estimated to be able to accompany you for a month.
Battery life:
There is no anxiety in the battery life, and there is no need to worry about running out of power for a week of moderate use, and the charging speed is not slow. In fact, under such a strong endurance guarantee, you can consider adding a manual switch function in the next firmware, so that you can go out without a charging case.
Convenient controls and overly low-key apps
Oladance "OWS" has a large touch area and is flat design, easy to operate, slide, click, double click, triple click, the current firmware version does not have a long press operation. It is a pity that there is no sensor to achieve functions such as wear sensing. The Bluetooth version is 5.2, but only supports the AAC/SBC basic transmission protocol, but for the open, the lossless transmission protocol is not just needed for the time being.
As a powerful technology tide brand, Oladance of course also equipped its own products with mobile APP, as far as the current version is concerned, like the above-mentioned "virtual bass", "dynamic EQ", "harmful frequency band shift technology", "sonic wave cancellation technology" and "call noise reduction technology", all of which are open by default, so there is no adjustment in the APP.
At present, the APP adjustable items have touch gestures, automatic mute, left and right balance tone, equalizer, and look forward to their subsequent improvement of the APP, and can have more personalized settings.
Functional experience:
Easy touch control and high success rate. The current version of the app is too simple and lacks many core feature options. Consumers in the premise of not having a full understanding of the product, the way to understand the function of this device is the APP, the function in the APP may not be adjusted to use, but this is the most intuitive like the user to express how good the device is, how much technical support, so that the user has more confidence in the product. I can not use it, but you can't do without it. So, look forward to the follow-up update experience.
Firmware version: 0.4.0.6 mobile APP version: V1.05
Experience summary
Just as the positioning of "OWS" of Oladance is to be a 'game breaker' in the TWS industry, to bring some different inspiration and experience to peers and headphone enthusiasts, and then we can promote the transformation of the TWS industry together. As the first form product of Oladance "OWS", the maturity is still relatively high, there are almost no bugs, the appearance design and hardware configuration are targeted in the open design, and give it a number of patented technologies for solving the sound quality and leakage of open headphones, and the overall performance is different from TWS headphones. The in-ear, burden-free wearing experience is really too comfortable.
Also because of the open design, plus Bluetooth encoding only supports AAC/SBC, the experience in the resolution of music, the details of the human voice, and the separation of the instrument is not the same as the experience brought by in-ear headphones. When I work, I prefer to bring "OWS" because it allows me to hear outside sounds while using it, and to stay connected with the outside world at any time, without the sense of isolation and discomfort caused by in-ear headphones.
With the development of science and technology, in order to meet the needs of the present, does not affect the health of the body has become a problem that just needs to be solved, and the headset designed with health as the starting point is not much hot in the market, but it can be expected that this must be the future trend. At present, this avant-garde, avant-garde headset is more likely to gain the favor of young people. At the same time, it can also be used as a gift, we can give it to those who think wearing headphones will damage their ears, change their perception with OWS, and use this unprecedented full open experience to protect everyone's hearing health.
"What is surprising is that after a road is built, the flow of people continues to pour in, and more and more people walk this road every year, and later people will repair the road and let it stay forever." Oladance has the potential to become such a trailblazer.
Finally, thanks to the professional audio equipment disassembly evaluation platform: I love the trial opportunity provided by the audio network, students who like audio equipment can pay more attention to it.