Zephyr Bluetooth shell for LE Audio testing

[Mohammad Afaneh]

Does the Bluetooth shell test application, included in Zephyr, support LE Audio testing?

If so, is there a special setup process that needs to be done in order to get this working? I added the audio.conf to the Kconfig fragments options and it builds fine, but I couldn't find any revelant shell commands, and I can’t find any documentation on which hardware is supported and the commands available for audio testing.

Is there any documentation for this functionality? What hardware would be required to run it?

Primarily, I would like to test just scanning for broadcast (BIG, BIS) streams and display its information, but on demand.

[Karl Ylvisaker]

Hello Mohammad! :) 

Does the Bluetooth shell test application, included in Zephyr, support LE Audio testing?

No, we unfortunately do not have shell support for LE Audio testing currently.
We do however see the convenience that this would provide, and have already had some preliminary internal discussions about this.

^Please see my latest comment.

If you are interested in, or have questions to, roadmaps and future releases I will have to refer you to your Regional Sales Manager instead, since we do not discuss future releases and roadmaps here on DevZone - your RSM however will happily take these questions, so please do not hesitate to reach out to them!
If you do not already know who your RSM is please let me know your location so that I may provide you with their contact information.

Best regards,
Karl

[Mohammad Afaneh]

Thanks, but I’m curious, why is there an audio.conf for the Bluetooth shell application? 

[Karl Ylvisaker]

Hello Mohammad,

Thank you for pointing this out - this prompted me to look further into this, and I stand corrected: the shell does support LE Audio commands. My misunderstanding was due to a comment from one of the developers where they mentioned that the nRF5340 LE Audio reference application directly does not support it, but looking further into this it seems in fact that both the zephyr shell has support for LE Audio testing of both the Zephyr Controller and the Packetcraft LE Audio controller (but the LE Audio application does not support this, as mentioned).
I will edit my previous reply to reflect this, and I apologize for the confusion.

You can also find the documentation here.

To work with the Packetcraft LE Audio controller you will also need the following kconfigs:

CONFIG_NCS_INCLUDE_RPMSG_CHILD_IMAGE=n # Make sure NCS build system won't build network core for us
	
CONFIG_BT_HCI_VS_EXT=n # Since we are not going to use Zephyr controller, so we have to disabled the VS command for Zephyr

Thanks again for making me aware of this, and please do not hesitate to ask if you should have any follow-up questions! :) 

Best regards,
Karl

[Mohammad Afaneh]

Hi Karl,

Sorry was traveling for the last week. Thanks! That answers my question. I will give it a try and post if I have any further questions.

[Mohammad Afaneh]

Which DKs can I use to test this? Especially if I am not going to render or stream any audio, can I use either the nRF52840 or nRF5340 DKs? or is this something only supported by the nRF5340 Audio DK? or no? Also, which build configuration should choose for the supported DK(s)?

[Karl Ylvisaker]

Hello Mohammad,

Mohammad Afaneh said:

Sorry was traveling for the last week.

No need to apologize - we'll continue this whenever you have a chance! :) 

Mohammad Afaneh said:

Which DKs can I use to test this?

The LE Audio controller is made for use with the nRF5340, so you can use the nRF5340 DK or the nRF5340 Audio DK to test this. If you are going to listen to the audio stream from the kit, or use a non-USB input as the audio source, then I highly recommend using the Audio DK since this makes things a lot easier.

Mohammad Afaneh said:

Also, which build configuration should choose for the supported DK(s)?

Which controller will you be testing with, the Zephyr Controller or the LE Audio controller?
In case of the former: by default all the examples use the SoftDevice controller, so you will need to include the CONFIG_BT_LL_SW_SPLIT=y in your kconfigs to use the Zephyr controller instead.
In case of the latter you will need to program the LE Audio Controller to the NETCORE 'manually' first, and make sure that your shell application does not write to 

Best regards,
Karl