What development trends will consumer electronics show at IFA 2019, which will open soon?

The 2019 Berlin International Consumer Electronics Show (IFA2019) will open on September 6 in Berlin, Germany. During last year's IFA, voice recognition and artificial intelligence were the highlights of the technology display of various technology and home appliance companies at the exhibition. What trending technology highlights will be presented at the upcoming IFA2019 this year? The reporter learned from the IFA official website that this year, in addition to the still popular artificial intelligence highlights, mobile devices for future 5G networks, flexible screens, 360-degree "surround sound" wireless speakers and other innovative devices will be displayed at this exhibition. These consumer electronics products with forward-looking technological innovations will inspire the latest shopping trends for millions of consumers.

AI is gradually becoming the mainstream, and 5G mobile phones will be released

This year, voice recognition and artificial intelligence are still the main topics of IFA2019. Artificial intelligence products will continue to be exhibited as a major trend highlight of the exhibition, and this trend will gradually set the tone, that is, over time, many types of equipment will further improve their performance using data systems. For example, voice control systems can continuously improve their performance, and artificial intelligence will be built into the latest generation of 8K screens, perfectly adapting to the current image resolution with ultra-high-definition pixel grids. In addition, AI can also make the sound as good as the image: intelligent software can recognize whether the sound comes from a football field, a newsroom or a concert hall, and make corresponding adjustments.

Hans-Joachim Kamp, chairman of the board of directors of the German Entertainment and Communications Electronics Industry Association (gfu), the organizer of IFA, pointed out that the consumer electronics and home appliance industries continue to pay more attention to smart connectivity. More and more products use artificial intelligence technology, which further improves their performance. In addition, voice control increases the functionality of devices and expands their usage scenarios. The application of these innovative technologies in consumer electronics and home appliances will be exhibited at the IFA exhibition.

5G is the future ultra-high-speed communication network technology and the main feature of other innovative trends. Currently, many countries around the world have been competing to develop 5G network technology. In the Chinese market, on June 6, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology officially issued 5G commercial licenses to China Telecom, China Mobile, China Unicom, and China Broadcasting Corporation, and China officially entered the first year of 5G commercial use. In the nearly two months since the announcement of 5G commercial use, the first batch of 5G mobile phones have also been revealed to consumers. At present, brands such as Huawei, OPPO, vivo, ZTE, and Samsung have launched 5G smartphones. Taking the Huawei Mate 20 X (5G) mobile phone as an example, according to tests, the download speed of this mobile phone in the business hall can reach more than 900Mbps, and the upload speed is about 60Mbps, which is a great breakthrough in speed compared to 4G.

At last year's IFA exhibition, the display of 5G smart terminal products was not prominent. This year, with the accelerated progress of global 5G technology, 5G smart devices will also be displayed on a large scale. It is reported that the first market-oriented 5G smartphone will be exhibited at IFA2019. To be more rigorous, this will be the first market-oriented 5G mobile phone at the IFA exhibition. It is reported that other mobile devices will also be launched soon.

Innovative screen technology

Screen technology continues to develop at an astonishing pace. Another innovative trend at this year's IFA exhibition comes from innovative screen technology, such as flexible foldable OLED screens. Earlier this year, the world's first rollable OLED TV from the LG SIGNATURE OLED TV R series was unveiled at CES 2019, attracting widespread attention. The OLED flexible display can be completely rolled up and stored in the base below the screen with just the press of a button (it only takes about 10 seconds to raise or store it back), and this base is also the TV's speaker. The American company Royole has also developed an ultra-thin OLED display with a thickness of about 0.01 mm that can be bent, folded, and even flipped.

According to the IFA official website, visitors to this year's IFA can also look forward to large TVs that can be rolled up and stored in neat cabinets. In addition to TVs, tablets that can be folded in half and smartphones folded from them will be seen at IFA 2019. The prototype will provide a hunch of a future mobile phone, which will look like a wrist ornament such as a bracelet. In general, the screen can be switched to "transparent mode" until the device software displays the image on the screen again when needed.

In addition, Micro LED displays will also be exhibited at this IFA exhibition. Micro LED, also known as Crystal LED, is another screen technology with good prospects. Sony's Crystal LED video wall technology, which was previously presented, is shocking. According to the reporter's inquiry, the basic principle of Micro LED is that each pixel is composed of three tiny LEDs - red, green and blue. Therefore, Micro LED is somewhat similar to light-emitting display technologies such as OLED, but Micro LED can get much brighter than OLED, making it very suitable for regenerated HDR images. In general, Micro LED has excellent performance in image, brightness, black level, color and detail.

360-degree "surround sound" wireless speakers

A new generation of projection projectors capable of scanning very large images is gradually emerging, using independent red, green and blue laser beams as light sources to produce brilliantly colored images and project images from a short distance near the screen. They project light upward onto a folding mirror so that the image can be precisely positioned on the screen without complex adjustments.

At this time, you can create a home movie atmosphere with a three-dimensional sound format to match these large-scale images. The latest trend is 360-degree sound. The sound of speakers covering the farthest corners of the room will give "surround sound" a whole new meaning, making the picture content richer and more vivid. This is where the increasingly mature wireless speaker technology comes in.

Wireless speakers remain one of the most popular consumer electronics products, and as artificial intelligence-assisted devices, the wireless speaker market has developed rapidly as AI scenarios continue to be implemented. Data shows that the global wireless speaker market was worth approximately $12.32 billion in 2018 and is expected to grow to $23.76 billion by 2022, with an annual growth rate of nearly 18%. This is mainly because of the ease of use of AI-enabled wireless speakers that provide features such as voice recognition, allowing users to control the functions of the speaker using voice commands. Wireless speakers based on AI software use the cloud, which provides a stable foundation for data storage and allows for quick access to data. It is understood that Google Home Max, Amazon Echo Dot 3rd Gen and JBL Link 10 are all wireless smart speakers that use AI technology.

IFA 2019 will no doubt also showcase the trend towards wireless smart speakers that can connect groups of users in multi-room systems, and the devices gaining consumer attention with a growing number of streaming services, including those that deliver high-fidelity quality music over the internet.

"In 2018, the global consumer technology product market exceeded 100 billion euros for the first time," said Hans-Joachim Kamp. Based on a year-on-year increase of 3.3%, the global consumer electronics market is expected to continue to increase by 1% in 2019, with a turnover of 105.2 billion euros. "We expect both the consumer electronics market and the home appliance market to develop steadily and continue to grow."