Jawbone Jambox Bluetooth Mobile Speaker Teardown

IHS Insight Perspective

The Jawbone Jambox was referred to as a major point of reference for several wireless speaker systems. The Jawbone Jambox is another $200 MSRP point device - competing directly with the beats Pill on pricing in the middle to high end of our $50 to $350 USD retail range for other wireless speaker systems we looked at.

Jawbone Jambox Bluetooth Mobile Speaker Main Image

• Available in 4 colors
• Rubberized exterior
• Speakerphone capability
• Line input and MicroUSB (charging only)
• 'Too expensive for sound quality is the essence of two major reviews

Design Notes

• With its heavy, glass-filled polyester enclosure components, two-shot molded rubber gasketing and rigid design elements, appears to be the most solidly built and mechanically substantial device of the group.
• Contains one of the most clever and creative design solutions that we've seen in a portable audio product - the lithium-ion battery is used as the mass element for the passive radiator. This solution is apparently a patented design from Soundmatters:
http://www.soundmatters.com/technologies/
https://docs.google.com/a/google.com/viewer?url=www.google.com/patents/US20080292117.pdf
The exact nature of the relationship between Jawbone and Soundmatters is unclear - it could be that Jawbox simply licenses the technology from Soundmatters, or perhaps purchases physical battery/radiator sub-assemblies from Soundmatters for use in their products.

Jawbone Jambox Bluetooth Mobile Speaker - Main PCB Top

Consumer

Released

November 2010 Per press releases from Jawbone

Jawbone Jambox Bluetooth Mobile Speaker - Main PCB Bottom

$199.99 USD MSRP

Street prices found as low as suggesting poor channel control.

Worldwide

Assumed to be worldwide availability: available from multiple e-tailers at the time of writing.

Jawbone Jambox Bluetooth Mobile Speaker - Disassembly View 1

350,000 Annual Production Volume
3 Total Years

For the purposes of this teardown analysis, we have assumed an Annual Production Volume of 350000 units and a Product Lifetime Volume of 3 year(s).

Teardown volume and production assumptions are primarily used for our cost analysis in terms of amortized NRE and tooling costs, especially for custom components specific to the model being analyzed (mechanical components especially). Unless assumed volumes are different by an order of magnitude, minor changes in volume (say 1 million vs. 2) rarely have a large net effect on our final analysis because of this.

Jawbone Jambox Bluetooth Mobile Speaker Cost Analysis

Component pricing reflects, in most cases, the volumes provided. Areas where specific production volumes may have limited effect include smaller passive components.

Total BOM: $29.62
Top Cost Drivers below: $17.64
% of Total BOM 60%

Main Cost Drivers below

Battery Pack - Li-Ion, 1-Cell, 3.7V, 800mAh, w/ Charge Protection Circuit- (Qty: 1)
Loudspeaker - 4-Ohm, Full-Range, Dome Radiator, Edge-Driven, w/ 25mm Dia. Convex Aluminum Diaphragm, Kapton Coil Form, 36AWG Copper Voice Coil, 17.3mm Dia. x 3.9mm High Rare Earth Magnet, Steel Pot, Rubber Surround, Plastic Frame, Foam Rubber Gasket- (Qty: 2)
AC Adapter - 100-240VAC 50/60Hz Input, 5V/550mA Output, NEMA 1-15 Plug to USB Type A, Class V- (Qty: 1)
CSR BC57E687C-GITB-E4 BlueCore5 Multimedia - Single Chip Bluetooth Solution, V3.0, Integrated 64MIPS Kalimba DSP Co-Processor, 24KB Program RAM, 84KB Data RAM- (Qty: 1)
Enclosure, Main, Front - 2-Shot Injection Molded Glass-Filled Polycarbonate & Thermalplastic Elastomer, w/ 12 Threaded Brass Inserts- (Qty: 1)
Enclosure, Main, Rear - 2-Shot Injection Molded Glass-Filled Polycarbonate & Thermalplastic Elastomer Elastomer, w/ 6 Threaded Brass Inserts- (Qty: 1)
Enclosure, Main, Housing - Stamped / Formed Metal, Painted- (Qty: 1)
Maxim MAX5457EEE+ Potentiometer - Dual, Digital, 32-Tap- (Qty: 1)
Texas Instruments TLV274ID Amplifier - Op-Amp, Quad, Rail to Rail, 3MHz- (Qty: 3)
Macronix MX29LV320EBXBI-70G Flash - NOR, 32Mb, 3V, 70ns- (Qty: 1)

Not Included in Analysis

The total materials and manufacturing costs reported in this analysis reflect ONLY the direct materials cost (from component vendors and assorted EMS providers), AND manufacturing with basic test. Not included in this analysis are costs above and beyond the material manufacture of the core device itself - cost of intellectual property, royalties and licensing fees (those not already included into the per component price), software, software loading and test, shipping, logistics marketing and other channel costs including not only EMS provider and the OEM's margin, but that of other resellers. Our cost analysis is meant to focus on those costs incurred in the manufacture of the core device and exceptionally in some circumstances the packaging and literature as well.

We do provide an Excel tab 'Overall Costs' where a user can enter their known pre and post production costs to build a per unit cost reflective of theirs actual expenditures.

Country of Origin

For the purposes of this analysis, we are assuming the following country(ies) of origin for each level of assembly, based on a combination of 'Made In' markings, and/or assumptions based on our knowledge of such equipment.

Bluetooth PCB - China
Box Contents - China
Main PCB - China
Misc Interface PCB Assemblies - China
Other - Enclosures / Final Assembly - China

Country of origin assumptions relate directly to the associated cost of manufacturing, where calculated by iSuppli. In the cases of 'finished' sub-assemblies (such as NFC modules), we do not calculate internal manufacturing costs, but rather assess the market price of the finished product in which case country of origin assumptions may or may not have a direct effect on pricing.

Labor rates are applied directly only to hand inserted components and systems in our bill of materials, and although regional assumptions do, these new rates do not have a direct effect on our modeled calculations of placement costs for automated SMD assembly lines. ""Auto" inserted components (such as SMT components) placement costs are calculated by an iSuppli algorithm which allocates a cost per component based on the size and pincount of the device. This calculation is affected by country or region of origin as well.

Design Complexity

Component counts by assembly and the number of assembly are indicators of design complexity and efficiency.

Component Qty: 74 - Other - Enclosures / Final Assembly
Component Qty: 151 - Main PCB
Component Qty: 11 - Box Contents
Component Qty: 20 - Misc Interface PCB Assemblies
Component Qty: 120 - Bluetooth PCB
Component Qty: 376 - Grand Total

The average component count of the 5 dual-driver designs we looked at was roughly 415 components. With a total component count of 376 this system clocks in as 'in line' with competing designs and is a natural byproduct of a limited feature set.

Design Notes

Electronics - This device is not MCU-centric but features major IC content from CSR (BlueCore 5 Bluetooth solution - same as most competing speaker solutions), a Yamaha audio power amplifier (YDA153), a Maxim potentiometer, some Macronix NOR flash and a handful of more minor ICs (power management, amplifiers, etc.)

Jawbone Jambox Bluetooth Mobile Speaker - Box Contents