Qualcomm’s new noise cancelling audio tech might be a challenge for Apple AirPods Pro, Sony earbuds

The firm says that the new feature may result in change in audio quality “according to the tightness of fit and the level of leak-through no matter how or where the earbuds are being used.”

Sony WF-1000XM3 earbuds. (HT Tech)

When it comes to noise cancelling features in earbuds, a couple of top brands in the list are Sony and Apple. They both have their own solutions for cutting the environmental noise. But it may soon happen that others like Bose, Jabra or Sennheiser may give a tough time to both of them as Qualcomm is coming up with a new ‘adaptive' noise cancellation feature. Announced today, the chipset maker says that this tech should adjust noise cancellation levels in real time, based on how the earbuds fit in the user's ear. The ‘Adaptive' factor kicks in when the earbuds are not fit properly and will still enable a consistent performance.

The firm says that the new feature may result in change in audio quality “according to the tightness of fit and the level of leak-through no matter how or where the earbuds are being used.”

Now, this might sound a lot like how Apple AirPods Pro works. The iPhone maker's latest earbuds are said to adjust the level of noise cancellation 200 times per second to give the best output while the ‘Adaptive EQ' feature tunes the output based on the shape of your ear.

Qualcomm, however, adds that this should work on almost all kinds of earbuds. And while this may sound as a threat to Apple's AirPods Pro, it might just give Sony earbuds a run for their money too, in the non-Apple ecosystem. Sony earbuds and headphones have long been known for their ‘industry-leading' noise cancellation tech. But good earbuds with nearly the same audio quality and Qualcomm's solution coming at a lesser price might just be a better proposition. It's obviously too early to say this for now.

In case you don't know, Qualcomm already works with Jabra, Sennheiser, Bang & Olufsen, 1More, Audio Technica, Skullcandy and more. So it might just be a matter of time before these come up with earbuds featuring Qualcomm's solution.