AI Earbud Supply Chain Tells All: Hojo Signs 5 Partners With 5M+ Units Planned
机器之心 · wechat · 2026-09-23
A machine-heart field report from Shenzhen's earbud supply chain shows how LLMs are upending traditional hardware manufacturing.
- OEM/ODM projects in flight: Fenghuo Hongsheng's AI earbuds (meeting transcription, translation) are in DVT with two brand orders, targeting mass production by year-end; IDH Qizhi, ODM Kenaixin, and MEES (incl. an LG project, 100K units) are all integrating tech from Hojo, a sub-two-year-old startup founded by ex-Xpeng voice lead Zhao Hengyi and ex-Tencent AI Lab speech head Su Dan.
- The gap: clients now arrive with just an idea, forcing ODMs into product definition without model/software capabilities. Hojo supplies a full AIStack (in-house ASR/TTS/full-duplex speech models, system, App/SDK) and is building an AgenticOS.
- Debugging culture: one "App won't connect" bug traced down to firmware; Hojo even built a pre-integration self-check tool at hardware teams' request.
- Traction: 10+ deep partners, 5 signed, 5M+ planned annual units. Hojo estimates earbuds ship 400M+/year but AI earbuds are only 2–3% of that.
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