Start developing with Auracast

[Aissa_akrikez]

Hi everyone, I'm a beginner with development Bluetooth and Auracast. In my job, we are going to improve some product we have, and we are thinking about Auracast. So I have few questions about it.

1. If I'm not wrong, with the nrf5340 audio DK I can test with Auracast or this is a feature will be in the future with an update as I seen in a post?

2. The chip nrf5340 has been activated to work with Auracast or only the Audio DK?

[Karl Ylvisaker]

Hello,

Yes, you may use the nRF5340 SoC for your Auracast product, and we recommend that you start out with the nRF5340 Audio DK for the development since this enables faster development of the products early stages, by quickly getting up and running with the nRF5340 LE Audio reference application.
The nRF5340 Audio DK's Hardware Codec (external to the nRF5340) is a mono codec, and so the DK can only output mono sound on the headphones jack, which is why you might also want to aquire an external stereo codec if your product will output stereo, like daviddedwin points out.

Could you tell me some more about your design's requirements and constraints, so that I may better advise on how you could proceed? :) 

Best regards,
Karl

[Aissa_akrikez]

Thanks so much, I will apply your recommendation and explore with the dev Kit.  About mono o stereo codec, If I'm not wrong, we only need mono audio, but it can change, so first I'm going to ask about all requirements. On development, we will improve one of our products to support LE audio and Auracast system. First only, I'll be experimenting and understanding all about these new characteristics of Bluetooth. If we finally decide to improve our product I will be on the forum to ask any questions I may have.

[Karl Ylvisaker]

Hello,

Aissa_akrikez said:

Thanks so much

No problem at all, I am happy to help! :) 

Aissa_akrikez said:

About mono o stereo codec, If I'm not wrong, we only need mono audio, but it can change, so first I'm going to ask about all requirements. On development, we will improve one of our products to support LE audio and Auracast system. First only, I'll be experimenting and understanding all about these new characteristics of Bluetooth.

That sounds like a good plan - you could always acquire and add an external stereo codec at a later point if/when the need arises. You can use all the features of LE Audio with the mono audio on the nRF5340 Audio DK, and so it is a great way for you to familiarize with the new specification.

If you are looking to gain a deeper understanding of the LE Audio specification, without reading the actual specification, I highly recommend the free book Introducing LE Audio by Nick Hunn, which you can download from BT SIG here.

Aissa_akrikez said:

If we finally decide to improve our product I will be on the forum to ask any questions I may have.

Great! Please do not hesitate to open another ticket if you should encounter any issues or questions during your evaluation, we are happy to help! :) 

Best regards,
Karl

[daviddedwin]

For the nRF5340 the perfomance envelope at best with some optimization seems to be to
encode a stereo stream and send over LE Audio
decode a mono stream with the received LE Audio and,
USB stack receiving the stereo stream from the host and 
sending the mono stream back to the host
simultaneously.

[Karl Ylvisaker]

Hello David,

Could you elaborate on what you are referring to here?
The nRF5340 can do more than what you have listed above - the rule of thumb is that the encoding of a 96 kbps stream will require roughly ~30% CPU utilization, while the decoding of the same stream will require roughly ~16% CPU.

Best regards,
Karl