LE Audio and the Future of Hearing

bad idea, companies needs to focus on getting power consumption down for hearing aid… they are so many complaints of hearing aid battery life in 2022… looking at phonak, yes you…

Intel announced today the 13th Gen Intel Core Mobile Platforms (H, P- and U-Series) which includes Bluetooth 5.3 and Bluetooth LE Audio support. This will increase the availability of Bluetooth LE Audio capabilities on laptop devices.

Really!? I planned to upgrade my good old PC buddy to gen 13th. Good thing I skipped 12th gen and wait for it.

But wonder, didn’t Bluetooth 5.3 dongle work the same thing? You want 5.3 and LE audio. Buy Bluetooth dongle that support it?

Yes, a BT dongle that supports LE Audio would work. I’m unaware of any that are available. and I only know of one that supports BT 5.3 and is not of a major brand

They just like to announce new hardware with bigger and badder firmware when in reality the thing can be upgraded from bluetooth 5.0 to BT 5.3 in firmware…

it is all about $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$

@grantb5 said:

How does Bluetooth of any flavor translate all the way up the food chain to the CPU?

Well, it’s not on the CPU as such. It will be a chip on the motherboard. Last year it was at 5.2 probably, this year 5.3. Might as well have the latest.

The company has revealed that it will soon roll out an update for the [Pixel Buds Pro] to enable Spatial Audio support with head tracking.

Spatial Audio is reportedly only supported by devices that are compatible with Bluetooth Low Energy (LE) audio.

So if you take those two sentences together does that mean that Pixel Buds will “soon” get upgraded to LE Audio?

Google Pixel January 2023 Updates Enables Spatial Audio Support5

This update also includes the January 2023 Android security patch.

This does not claim to support LE Audio. (It’s also only available for “preorder”)

@grantb5 I don’t know how things are organised these days. I assumed that somewhere there’s an identifiable bit of silicon to which the CPU (whatever that is now) offloads wireless communication. On Snapdragon SoC’s for Android phones it’s called “FastConnect”. It’s handles Bluetooth communication up to a particular version number. So, new Bluetooth version requires a new version of FastConnect.

@d_Wooluf said:

. On Snapdragon SoC’s for Android phones it’s called “FastConnect”

Not always, some Snapdragon phone uses Broadcom chip which can be better than Qualcomm chip. It cost money to use / to get the FastConnect firmware and radio hardware.

Thanks. This is really interesting. From Quallcom’s website I’d gotten the impression that FastConnect was an integrated part of the SOC, but obviously not true. I do not understand much of the terminology in the diagrams. Where does the cell modem (LTE, 5G) “live” in that complicated mess? Is it part of the SOC or also separate like the WiFi/BT chip? Thanks again.

@MDB said:

From Quallcom’s website I’d gotten the impression that FastConnect was an integrated part of the SOC, but obviously not true.

It is misleading, It just mean it is just easier to integrate into your product than your competitors such as broadcom

@MDB said:

Where does the cell modem (LTE, 5G) “live” in that complicated mess?

It is a complicated mess,. modem processor is part of the SoC but there are supporting chips that Qualcomm need you to add before 4g/5g works. which cost $$$$

Just by having the chip itself is not enough. There is a baseband firmware/OS you need to buy before use… even more $$$$$$$$$

Thanks. Guess this demonstrates why buying a phone is a lot more than just the SOC. It’s the whole package.

I worked on Qualcomm snapdragon SoC family in my previous life… it was a interesting beast to say the least.