As football fans rejoice at the return of UEFA EURO 2020™ following a year of social distancing and increased event digitalization, exploring the role of wireless connectivity in sports is more important than ever. From enabling instant replays and video-assistant referees (VAR) to on-demand streaming, the football stadium experience has continuously evolved with new technology catering to the increasingly tech-savvy fans — and 5G is the new frontier. 

Indeed, smartphones are the gateway for consumers to absorb entertainment and follow the every move of their favorite athlete or team in sports. With telecommunication pioneers like global smartphone maker vivo working on making 5G devices ever more accessible and affordable, this segment is already projected to account for more than a third of the global smartphone sales as early as this year. 

5G is already a commercial reality, rolling out faster than any “G” before. The proliferation of the fifth generation of wireless technology promises to connect virtually everyone and everything in no time, creating new opportunities across industries. The benefits 5G offers over 4G and other wireless solutions are numerous. On top of enabling higher speed to upload and download data, 5G also ensures negligible latency times and capacity to connect millions of devices simultaneously without compromising the connection quality. 

For football stadiums, this means opportunities to implement and deploy countless Internet of Things (IoT) solutions to refine the on-site fan experience, including crowd management and smart parking. It also means that a large amount of data could be transferred almost in real-time, allowing for new and flexible broadcasting and fan engagement application scenarios. 

Curating your own viewing experience

As the official smartphone of UEFA EURO 2020™, vivo recently launched its “To Beautiful Moments” campaign, encouraging people watching the championship to be in the moment, whether that means connecting virtually with friends, family and fellow fans or giving their full attention to the game, even if it means putting the phone down. 

When we talk about football, we talk about passion and sportsmanship bringing people together to enjoy the beautiful game. As the pandemic subsides, social gatherings are being welcomed back with open arms and technology should not disrupt this once-in-a-lifetime experience to embrace the roaring crowds, but rather improve it. 

Looking at the potential 5G application scenarios at the stadium that empower fans to curate their own experience, live broadcasting is one important area. A well-known 5G application scenario is higher volume of data sharing, allowing fans watching the game at home from their smartphones to seamlessly access different 360-degree high-definition cameras placed throughout the stadium.

5G-enabled wireless cameras can allow for greater flexibility and completely new shooting perspectives. This can even mean switching to a goalkeeper or referee’s POV through your 5G smartphone, whether you’re watching from high-up the stands or lining up for a cold beer at the beverage stand, to witness the action from anywhere with a level of immersiveness like never before.  

Leveraging 5G, fan’s smartphones can also be transformed into a broadcasting camera. With 5G smartphones equipped with professional-grade camera technologies, suitable for shooting action-packed scenes such as the vivo X60 devices, fans will be able to capture their own footage and share it with their online community in real-time. Extended reality application scenarios could also allow fans to interact with the game in new ways, such as using AR to view player stats, match analysis, tailored playbacks and more. 

How vivo’s 5G technology can bridge users with the digital world

To democratize and popularize these powerful capabilities for the masses, vivo boasts multiple lineups of powerful 5G smartphones across a broad spectrum — ranging from professional photography, high performance, selfie-taking, e-sports and more — that are available at every price point to serve all kinds of user needs around the world. 

Owing to the efforts of its strong R&D network across nine innovation centers located around the world, vivo has been awarded with over 3,000 patents for 5G-related technologies. Always innovating with the user in mind, vivo specialists have been working to address several critical pain points of 5G smartphone design, some of which are now ubiquitous among all smartphone products. 

One of vivo’s most significant discoveries is its standardization and performance enhancement of 5G multi-SIM technology. During the early stages of development, 5G standards experts found that an incoming voice call from one competing SIM card would interrupt the data flow of the other, resulting in abysmal performance as one would cancel the other.  

When streaming a live sports event from your smartphone, any incoming transmissions from another SIM-card would cut off its 5G connectivity and disrupt the viewing experience. Hence, vivo researchers successfully sought to negate the clash, leading to the existence of multi-SIM 5G smartphones on the market today.

Another issue raised by 5G technology is the large number of antennas and components required inside a smartphone. Never one to disappoint, vivo’s proprietary 3D stack design uniquely encases all of this industry-leading technology to allow new 5G smartphones to be even slimmer than its 4G predecessors, resulting in ultra-thin smartphones encased in sleek metallic exteriors to become widely available. 

Power-intensive multimedia entertainment scenarios such as livestreaming an 8K video via 5G or playing FIFA 21 for Android online can be incredibly battery draining. To address this, vivo has developed its patented terminal power-saving technology which allows the smartphone to identify opportunities to doze-off, lowering normal energy consumption and extending battery life. Combined with vivo’s 120W fast charging technology, users can enjoy their vivo 5G devices to the fullest with uncompromised performance. 

As a leading smartphone brand beloved by over 400 million users in more than 40 countries, vivo is accelerating the empowerment of mass consumers in this new digital era by designing cutting-edge 5G smartphones that can serve as the bridge between users and the digital world. Notwithstanding this, vivo strives to create humanistic joy by revolutionizing how millions around the world enjoy the UEFA EURO 2020™ games and by extension, every facet of their daily lives.