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Pico-ASHA: USB audio to ASHA adapter - Early testers wanted

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Hi everyone!

Over the past few months in my spare time, I have been developing a USB audio to adapter using a Raspberry Pi Pico W microcontroller. I have gotten to the point where I can reliably stream audio to my Oticon More’s, and I am now looking for any volunteers who might be willing to help test with other brands.

First a warning: the project is still very much a work in progress, expect plenty of warts. I have yet to figure out what the final user experience will be. Also, there’s no guarantee that it will ever work with your particular hearing devices. Starkey Arc devices are known to not work at this time.

If you are interested in being a tester, here are the requirements:

  • Obtain a Raspberry Pi Pico W (or WH)40 microcontroller. These are low cost ($6 USD) and widely available.
  • Have (or obtain) a Micro USB cable to plug the pico into a computer (Linux and Windows 11 tested).
  • Have a Github account to download the software if you don’t want to compile it.
  • Be comfortable with the idea of connecting to a USB serial port.
  • Be prepared for disappointment when it doesn’t work immediately (or ever in the worst case scenario).

If you’re still interested, head on over to the Pico-ASHA109 Github repository to get started. The readme has instructions on how to get started. Feel free to open an issue if you want to provide feetback, or need help.

8 people in this conversation8 min readJump to latest

Thanks! I might check this out, though I think my Starkey are a generation too early for . I have a pair of Oticons, also from a couple of years ago.

I’m not 100% sure, but I don’t think you need a GitHub account to download code from there.

Where else have you mentioned this? Hacker News and Reddit might be good places. Reddit has a hearing aids sub.

So, big picture is that the programmed Pico W appears as a USB PC sound card (for the audio source) with an optional TTL UART debug output?

Yeah, the only binaries I’m providing at the moment are from Github actions, which require an account to download actions. I’m thinking of creating a “latest” release or something to sidestep this.

Haven’t really mentioned anywhere else yet. I too was thinking Reddit & Hacker News.

Pico- presents itself as a composite USB device: A USB sound card, and CDC (serial) device. The UART output is strictly optional (and I think I broke it in the recent USB serial refactors). The goal is to not require any extra tools or hardware.

In fact, I’ve just removed mentioning UART on the readme for now so there is no confusion.

This is about the new , which is not relevant to Pico-. If my hearing aids supported LE Audio, I probably wouldn’t have even started Pico-ASHA.

@sherman I have Signia 5Ax and would like stream audio from Win11 laptop.
I have Pico2 W board and copied pico-asha uf2 file while in Boot mode (I took the uf2 file from Actions built under PicoBt Branch #147), it didnt automatically restart and tried to disconnect and reconnect but nothing happened seems like firmware didnt load. Am I missing anything here?
However, I tried other uf2 available online to make sure board is fine and they worked as expected. Any help is very much appreciated. Thanks

Hi all

It’s been a while, but after a lot of on and off work on this, I’ve finally got it to a point where I can create a beta release. This release includes numerous improvements such as:

  • A GUI application (precompiled for Windows) to monitor and control Pico - No more terminal required!
  • Lot’s of under the hood changes and improvements
  • A website24 with some documentation that is hopefully a bit friendlier and not too technical.

Please feel free to try it. Be warned though, it’s still a beta for a reason…

Edited

I’ve not yet tried the beta, but Build 213 was working and the GUI makes it much easier to know what is going on. Edit: Beta v0.2.0 on a PicoW works well from limited testing.

Will future updates all appear on that site or is there some benefit to grabbing intermediate ones?

Could you use Airtable or something to better track which aids work and do not work?

This is an amazing contribution to the community.

A dumb question but what is this software + hardware designed to do?
Is this so a person with hearing aids can stream audio signals from their laptop or media streamer direct into their hearing aids?
A diagram showing the audio path and the components in it would help me greatly.
Thank you

Yeah, it’s designed for laptop/PC users to stream audio directly to their hearing aids. It shows as a USB audio sound card.

Similar in concept to a TV streamer.

In reply to @paul.cleary.nz

This uses the protocol (like an Android phone) and runs that on a Raspberry Pi Pico W or Pico 2W. In works on Windows 10/11 but not Windows 7. If your aids are ASHA compatible, it is likely to work. This will then allow you to stream audio from a Windows 10/11 PC to the aids. It will show as another sound source as if plugging in a headphone/speakers. You do not need any audio cables but will need a USB connection to the Pi Pico. It is not bidirectional (yet?) so you are not able to use the mic of the aids even if you could with an ASHA phone.

Yeah, no bidirectional audio. does not support that.

Unfortunately, TinyUSB only implements USB Audio Class 2.0 (UAC2), which is not supported in versions of Windows prior to Windows 10. I would love if UAC1 was available, but it isn’t, and I don’t know enough about USB to implement it myself.

In reply to @sherman

Thanks for the explanation. So I see that good use cases for this adapter could be:

  • person with using their Windows laptop to take part in a Zoom call. They can hear the conversations on their HAs (instead of the laptop speakers) and use the laptop microphone for their voice.
  • person with HAs using their Windows laptop for Whatsapp phone calls. Again, they can hear via their HAs and talk using the laptop microphone.
  • person with HAs using their Windows laptop to watch YouTube or Instagram videos, e.g. instructional or classroom learning situations.

Hello, I am using Bernafon alpha 5 miniRITE T R. I tried it on my Windows 11 computer and the result is great. Thank you.

Hi all.

I’ve just released the next beta version v0.3.08.

The changes and new features are as follows:

  • Pico- now supports the original USB Audio Class (UAC1) specification. This means that it will work on older computers. I have tested it on a PC running Windows XP, and a 2002 Apple eMac. The UAC version can be switched using the GUI, and defaults to UAC2.

  • Selectable USB volume range limiting has been implemented. This allows for finer grained OS volume control if you do not need the entire ASHA volume range. NOTE: Windows users are advised to restart their computer after making this change, because the volume slider is set for the previous volume range.

  • Battery level indicator. Most (all?) hearing devices have a common bluetooth service with a battery level indicator. Pico-ASHA can now display this level.

  • Audio synchronization changes. Pico-ASHA now restarts the audio streaming for both sides when one side stops streaming. This mostly solves stereo synch issues, with the trade-off being a bit brief audio drop-outs.

For Win 7, I get an error and the GUI will not run “The procedure entry point CreatDXGIFactory2 could not be located in the dynamic link library dxgi.dll”

If I switch to UAC1 in the GUI on another machine, Pico- works on Win 7 (but there are driver errors). Is there a way to implement UAC1 if needed and fallback to UAC2? I assume UAC2 is preferable on compatible machines?

On Win 11, the maximum volume would not change from zero. Possibly this is user error or need to restart.

It seems like range has improved, especially from the early days where the connection was not very stable?

I realize the focus is ASHA, but could this support classic BT aids as well?

So useful for those who need this, thanks.

Hi, yes, sorry I forgot to mention that you will need to use the GUI on a newer OS (Because Qt6 doesn’t support older operating systems).

The driver issues on Windows 7 are probably for the serial connection - it was like that on Windows XP.

I forgot to explain, but the maximum volume is 0 (that is literally the maximum that uses). The purpose of the volume range adjustment is to allow people like me who have no need of volume levels that high to have better volume control at lower volumes.

I nave no plans to support classic bluetooth. There should be plenty of options available for that, including built into Windows/Mac/Linux.

I hope this helps!

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