Bluetooth, Hearables, IoT, Smart Energy and other random Stuff
Wireless things we put in our ears.
At the end of November, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) in the US issued a mandate that all mobile phones sold in the US will soon need to be able to work with hearing aids. It’s a massive advance for hearing loss advocates and hearing aid manufacturers, who have been working towards this goal for more than a decade. (The full mandate is available on the FCC site.)
If you’ve not heard of Auracast™, it’s time to find out about it. It’s part of the new Bluetooth Low Energy Audio specifications which support broadcast audio. What that means is that it allows individuals and places to share an audio stream, so that multiple people can listen to the same thing.
Auracast builds on the telecoil experience, which has been part of hearing aids for many years, but supports a new codec, called LC3. This can be used to generate high quality audio with such a low latency that the Bluetooth stream can reach your ears at the same time as the ambient stream. Last week, Auracast had its first major public demonstration in the US at a performance of Richard Einhorn’s “Voice of Light” in the Lincoln Centre in New York. A number of users, both with and without hearing loss were able to hear how it works. I was one of the lucky few to try it. Talking to others after the performance, it was obvious that not only did it work exceedingly well, but the audio quality was so good that we were starting to have some fundamental questions about how live music is recorded. Andrew Bellavia has already written about the devices which were used. I was fascinated with the resulting experience.
The audio industry is constantly telling us how great its products are. Their latest wheeze is to push the message that we all need even higher quality. That’s despite the fact that nobody can hear the difference. Unfortunately, the major players so believe their own PR that over the last century they’ve largely missed the fact that there’s more to the listening experience than just extending frequency response. On the few occasions we’ve seen real innovation in audio, it’s almost always come from outside the established audio industry. So how do we put innovation back into audio?
It’s around a month since Apple received approval from the FDA to sell their AirPods Pro 2 as hearing aids. That announcement caused a flurry of excitement amongst audio industry analysts and journalists, predicting that it would change the hearing aid market. I suspect that may prove to be false. The more interesting debate is whether it will lessen the stigma which is still associated with wearing a hearing aid. Andrew Bellavia and Joao Martins have written well-considered pieces on this. It’s a topic which needs more consideration than the media’s obsession with the technology or manufacturer, as it’s still unclear how we can change society’s attitude to hearing loss.
Most people have a view about their speakers, earbuds and headphones. They’ll happily enthuse about the audio performance, how well the noise cancellation works, their battery life and features like transparency. But nobody talks about microphones. The most you’re ever likely to hear is an exasperated “can you hear me” during a phone conversation, or a possibly muted oath about whether they’re muted and how to turn the mute on or off.
It’s almost wo weeks since Apple shipped its first tranche of Vision Pros to around 100,000 lucky boys and girls (although I suspect the majority were lucky boys). According to the New York Times, the average cost of a Vision Pro is close to $4,600 by the time you’ve fitted it out with the recommended accessories. If you’re outside the US, there’s a significant premium on top of that. So, the first tranche of sales of around 200,000 units will have netted Apple in excess of $1 billion. That’s a staggering achievement, as is folding all of the tech into the product. Bringing it to market is an amazing step. The question is whether it’s going to impinge on very many people?