A national standard will be established to accurately measure and compare audio playback time, a key performance indicator for wireless earphones.

The Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy's National Institute of Standards and Technology (President Lee Sang-hoon) announced that it will establish and announce a national standard (KS C 5500) on September 8th that specifies the 'Method for Measuring Audio Playback Time of Left and Right Independent Wireless Earphones.'

When purchasing wireless earphones, battery performance, or audio playback time, is becoming an important selection criterion. However, due to the lack of an official standard for measuring playback time, consumers have had no choice but to purchase products based on performance information measured by the manufacturer itself.

The Consumers' Coalition for Economic Justice has requested the establishment of an official test method for wireless earphone playback time, and there have been calls for standardization of performance measurement test methods to enable consumers to make rational choices.

Accordingly, the Korea Agency for Technology and Standards (KATS) prepared a standard for the 'Method for Measuring Audio Playback Time of Left and Right Independent Wireless Earphones' together with the Korea Testing Laboratory and industry, academia, and research institute standards experts through the '2021 Standard Development Cooperation Organization Support Project'.

This standard specifies the test environment, measurement conditions, measurement methods, and measurement equipment required for measuring wireless earphone playback time.

In particular, the basic conditions for wireless earphones were set during measurement so that all products could be tested in the same environment, and the measurement items included battery life, noise ratio curve, and maximum measured sound pressure level.

Wireless earphone manufacturers can receive performance measurement services from the Korea Electronics Technology Institute (KETI) and the Korea Testing Laboratory (KTC), which have performance measurement testing facilities such as playback time.

Lee Sang-hoon, head of the Korea Agency for Technology and Standards, said, “By establishing a standard that provides performance information on wireless earphones, which have recently become increasingly popular, we are enabling consumers to choose products based on performance information.” He added, “In the future, we will not only promote the international standardization of the relevant national standard, but also discover various standardization tasks that are directly related to the daily lives of citizens.”