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LE Audio and the Future of Hearing

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They seem to talk like it’s just a software feature. It may be challenging for awhile to know for sure if a phone will support it unless they start being more transparent.

@MDB said:

They seem to talk like it’s just a software feature. It may be challenging for awhile to know for sure if a phone will support it

Also in the latest beta they’ve added a switch in developer settings. The switch is “disable offload to hardware” which they’ve apparently added for testing purposes. This implies to me that parts of LE can be processed in hardware or in software.

Years ago when compressed video standards became common it would take a big chunk of your computer’s resources to play them. Then graphics card manufacturers added video decoding support. The computer could offload video decoding to to theTh graphics card, taking the load off the cpu.

I’m guessing it’s a similar situation here. Some of the latest mobile phone SOCs (eg the latest Mediatek) have support for LE Audio. So (still guessing here) they’ll have silicon devoted to processing LE Audio, which will take the load off the cores. Phones without that hardware support would be able to process LE Audio but it would impact their performance and battery life.

5.2 or higher in hardware would be the absolute requirement (further guessing). If any of the electronics engineers around here would like to chime in…? Not sure if this addresses your point actually.

That makes sense that the code necessary to support could be embedded in hardware or run as software. I’m guessing it would be much more energy efficient if embedded.

Not that impressed with the name. Lacks punch somehow. The thought also occurred that whenever it doesn’t work as expected it will quickly become “horrorcast”.

The other thought (two in one day!) was that ‘cast’ is almost a Google trademark. So, I’m not sure how that will sit with Apple.

Reading it I got the feeling these might be things you got charged for to listen.

Looks like Hearing Access Profile and Hearing Access Service is now finalized/adopted in the specification. Now we are just waiting for the Public Broadcast Profile to be finalized:

Hearing Access Profile | Bluetooth® Technology Website8

This profile defines the requirements for Bluetooth devices necessary for interoperability within the hearing aid ecosystem. It specifies behaviors related to audio streaming and remote control of the…

Hearing Access Service | Bluetooth® Technology Website1

The Hearing Access Service (HAS) is used to identify hearing aids and to control hearing aid presets. Errata Correction 23224 is mandatory when claiming compliance to Hearing Access Service 1.0…

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@Spindel said:

Now we are just waiting for the Public Broadcast Profile to be finalized:

and that’s the one they’ve been promoting the most lately. I think we’ll see an announcement with associated hoopla within a few weeks.

Nick Hunn gives an insightful update. All eyes on Apple and Google!

We’re getting close! My guess is that in phones the possibilities are the iPhone 14 or Pixel 7. For Samsungs, it’s possible it could come out in their foldable phones this Fall and Galaxy S23 seems highly likely in Spring. Some possibility that some existing Android phones using latest chipsets could get it once Android 13 becomes available. He also hints and I think I saw somewhere else that there will be USB plugins that will provide this capability. The big question is how long it takes hearing aid companies to do this and will they want to give up their proprietary tech.

I was disappointed to learn (not from the video) that the specifications for the new Pixel buds show 5. I was hoping Google would release Pixel 7 and Pixel buds both with . That would have kickstarted things quite well.

The Nuraloops Pro that I pre-ordered in a weak moment seem to have all the requirements for LE Audio, yet Nura don’t see the value in it. They’re plugging Bluetooth Lossless as its big selling point- going for the audiophile market. Seriously?

In reply to @MDB

Did some digging and it looks like EPOS (company owned by the hearing aid company Demant / Oticon) will release a USB Dongle with Bluetooth , called EPOS BTD 800a (Model DSBT1)
https://launchstudio.bluetooth.com/ListingDetails/15419614

It uses a Qualcomm QCC5151 chip:

QCC5151 | Extremely low-power premium tier Bluetooth Audio SoC WLCSP | Qualcomm

With its advanced features, the QCC5151 is the ideal choice for high-end Bluetooth audio applications. Get the best audio experience with Qualcomm.

So, it will probably be possible to put that USB dongle into a laptop/computer and stream audio to Bluetooth LE Audio hearing aids (like Oticon More).

And HURRAY! for the proposed reduced price of the USB dongles as compared to the current cost of specialized proprietary streaming devices from the various OEMs.

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