Braven 600 Bluetooth Mobile Speaker Teardown

IHS Insight Perspective

$149 wireless speaker bar from a small 'Kickstarter' startup company. This fits in the middle of a range of wireless speaker options ranging from $50 to $350 in the wireless speaker bar market. Mixed reviews on the product suggest poor low end performance - but some people like the added feature that this device acts as a portable battery for charging smartphones.

Braven 600 Bluetooth Mobile Speaker Main Image

Key Features & Comments

• Functions as speakerphone
• 2 color options - aluminum enclosure
• Line input, output, microUSB (charging only?)
• 3 different speakers in this series - this is the cheapest in the series
• Designed to be a portable battery. Will charge your phone.
• Playback control

Braven 600 Bluetooth Mobile Speaker - Main PCB Top

• Contains no additional DSP/CODEC.
• Relies on "2nd Tier Silicon vendors - Power Analog Microelectronics, Princeton Technology - for audio amplification and volume control functions. This helps keep things cost-effective, and helps keep the product at a lower price point than other similar competition.

Target Market

Consumer

Braven 600 Bluetooth Mobile Speaker - Main PCB Bottom

June 14, 2012 Per press

Pricing and Availability

$149.00 USD MSRP

Street prices found as low as ~$120 USD (Jan 2013)

Braven 600 Bluetooth Mobile Speaker - Disassembly View 1

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

Volume Estimations

100,000 Annual Production Volume
3 Total Years

For the purposes of this teardown analysis, we have assumed an Annual Production Volume of 100000 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.

Braven 600 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: $30.68
Top Cost Drivers below: $21.18
% of Total BOM 69%

Main Cost Drivers below

CEL Battery Co. Battery Pack - Li-Ion Polymer, 2-Cell, 3.7V, 1400mAh, w/ Charge Protection Circuit & Discrete Insulated Lead Wires- (Qty: 1)
Bluetooth Module - V3.0, (A2DP)1.2 Support, Contains CSR BC57E687C-GITB-E4 Chipset- (Qty: 1)
Enclosure, Main, Housing - Extruded, Machined, Aluminum, Painted, Printed- (Qty: 1)
Loudspeaker - 4-Ohm, 3W, Full-Range, 28mm Dia. Paper Cone, Kapton Coil Form, 37AWG Copper Voice Coil, 15.0mm Dia. x 3.0mm High & 12.5mm Dia. x 2.0mm High Rare Earth Magnets, Steel Pot, Pole Piece & Basket, Domed Mylar Dust Cap, Treated Cloth Surround, Fabric Mesh Spider, w/ 2 28AWG Discrete Insulated Wires & 2-Position Pin Socket Connector- (Qty: 2)
AC Adapter - 100-240VAC 50/60Hz Input, 5.0V/1.0A Output, NEMA 1-15 Plug to USB Type A Socket, Folding Terminals- (Qty: 1)
Enclosure, Main, Rear - Injection Molded Plastic- (Qty: 1)
Enclosure, Main, Front - Injection Molded Plastic- (Qty: 1)
4-Layer - FR4, Lead-Free- (Qty: 3)
Power Analog Microelectronics PAM8908JER Audio Power Amplifier - Headphone Driver, Stereo, Class AB, 25mW/Ch, w/ Integral Cap-Free Charge Pump- (Qty: 2)
Power Analog Microelectronics PAM8404KGR Audio Power Amplifier - Class D, Stereo, 3W/Ch, Filterless- (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.

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: 54 - Other - Enclosures / Final Assembly
Component Qty: 217 - Main PCB
Component Qty: 13 - Box Contents
Component Qty: 90 - Misc Interface PCB Assemblies
Component Qty: 374 - Grand Total

The average component count of the 5 dual-driver designs we looked at was roughly 415 components. At 374 the Braven 600 is lower than average in terms of component and build complexity.

Design Notes

Electronics - as mentioned above Braven has used 2nd tier silicon vendors, except for the key Bluetooth part - and leverages (as almost all of them do) a CSR BlueCore 5 bluetooth chip. Other 'major' components are mostly audio amplifiers and a volume controller IC - most of them are less than $1 each and do not even appear in 'major components' below.

Braven 600 Bluetooth Mobile Speaker - Box Contents