I recently bought a Bluetooth AptX LL transmitter for my mother-in-law. It cost about as much as a steak sandwich and fries at a pub lunch. There’s no reason why a LE Audio transmitter should cost any more. Slightly less probably: no license fees to Qualcomm.

@Spindel said:

EPOS (company owned by the hearing aid company Demant / Oticon) will release a USB Dongle with Bluetooth LE Audio

Thanks. It’s the owner of the company making this that makes it interesting. Might be a pointer to their intentions.

I don’t think this has been shared: Bluetooth Assistive Listening Gets Closer — Hearing Health Foundation11

I found it interesting that a spokesperson from Resound was not optimistic since Resound One’s are supposedly already upgradeable. It’s possible that OTC hearing aids could put some pressure on if they take less time to develop because they don’t have to be approved as medical devices.

@MDB said:

I don’t think this has been shared: Bluetooth Assistive Listening Gets Closer — Hearing Health Foundation

Maybe I’m misinterpreting the following paragraph from the article, but I take the text to mean that older HA’s could join the happy BT LE Audio Auracast throng, too, by having a proprietary neck loop capable of receiving BT LE Audio broadcasts and transferring the audio from the neck loop to the HA’s using older technology. Presumably, a smartphone app would interface to the neck loop to allow the listener to pick the channel of interest, etc.

Auracast could make connecting to an assistive listening device as simple as it is with a hearing loop. Wearers of Bluetooth-capable hearing aids could connect with the touch of a button (or possibly even automatically once you enter a room with a Bluetooth assistive listening system). Those without hearing aids could connect with a pair of Bluetooth earbuds or use their Android or an older iPhone with plug-in, wired earbuds, and those with telecoil-equipped hearing aids could connect using a neck loop.

In the last line of the blog by Bisgaard from Resound cited in the article, Bisgaard does write the following:

However, hearing aids are medical devices and thus subject to rather strict regulatory requirements, so it will therefore take some time to get products out, but all major hearing aid manufacturers are investigating the implementation of LE Audio for upcoming products.
Source: The next version of Bluetooth with Audio Sharing will bring a new world of sound to users with Bluetooth enabled devices - Hearing Industries Association (betterhearing.org)1

The second half of the sentence to me is just as interesting as the first half. Presumably “all major hearing aid manufacturers” means that Bisgaard knows for sure that Phonak is also working on incorporating BT LE Audio into its products as well.

Interesting thoughts. I wonder if they will make dongles for phones? Issues I can think of are robustness (kind of clunky having a something stickig out of the phone), OS compatibility (IOS or Android compatible and which versions) and interface compatibility (USB-A, C or Lightning) I’m thinking most dongles would be for Windows computers. I don’t see it as likely that a cheap, generic dongle would have all the software issues sorted out.
It does seem possible that the phone could be an intermediary. Some latency would be introduced, but shouldn’t be an issue in a lot of broadcast situations.
@jim_lewis I got the impression that they expected telecoils to hang around for awhile.

This article mentions the phone as intermediary as a possibility. What is Auracast? The Bluetooth broadcast tech fully explained | Digital Trends10

It also clarifies that when looking for compatible devices, one will look for “Auracast” (not BT 5.3, LE Audo or LC3). Plenty of room for continued confusion! :>)

@MDB said:

This article mentions the phone as intermediary as a possibility.

“If your headphones are wireless, but not Auracast-compatible, you may be able to use your phone as the Auracast receiver. I say “may” because this scenario would require your phone to receive and then re-transmit the Bluetooth broadcast — a capability that might not be supported by all Auracast-capable phones or tablets, etc.”

You might need two BT radios in your device maybe? Nice article btw. So many of them regurgitate press releases. This guy’s thought about the issues. The copyright question is a bit of an elephant in the room (although audio sharing using BT isn’t a whole lot different from turning on your radio in a public space).

A number of websites are saying that LE Audio has been announced as being complete. So finally, two and a half years later…

Bluetooth audio’s biggest upgrade in years is coming soon to headphones16

Including the super efficient LC3 codec.

Interesting that the FAQ at the BT SIG website emphasizes that products can be made to be compatible with both classic BT and BT LE Audio. It doesn’t have to be either/or. I wonder if Phonak will take that approach in a new generation of HA’s?

Just Announced: The Complete Suite of Bluetooth LE Audio Specifications Is...13

Today, the Bluetooth Special Interest Group (SIG) announced the completion of the full set of Bluetooth LE Audio specifications, enabling the release of products supporting the next generation of…

Wha? They just release official Android 12 3-4 months ago. Now Android 13?

This is for Google Pixel phones only at this point. 12 came out sometime in 2021. Other brands phones will likely get it notably later.

October 2021 is when Android 12 was released. Android 13 came a little early. Oticon More is supposed to be “ready for LE Audio”. Resound One has got Bluetooth 5.2 so might be upgradeable but I haven’t seen GE Resound commit to it in writing. One of our users was told by his audi that it would happen.

There are now phones out there that have LE Audio, so bring on those updates!

I think Oticon More has BT 5.1