What are the requirements to begin developing/implementing Auracast?

[Nick_RA]

I've been tasked with studying adding Auracast to an application. One fundamental thing I can't get my head around is what is the s/w requirement - i.e. do I need 3rd party protocol stacks, or is Nordic's SDK & DK ready to go? Specifically, I need the SoC to run a GATT service and provide a concurrent mono audio stream (transmit).

The sales literature is pretty vague in this respect:

"The nRF5340 SoC supports an extensive range of wireless protocols. It supports Bluetooth Low Energy and is capable of all angle-of-arrival (AoA) and angle-of-departure (AoD) roles in Bluetooth Direction Finding. In addition, it supports LE Audio, high-throughput 2 Mbps, Advertising Extensions and Long Range. Mesh protocols like Bluetooth mesh, Thread and Zigbee can be run concurrently with Bluetooth LE, enabling smartphones to provision, commission, configure and control mesh nodes. NFC, ANT, 802.15.4 and 2.4 GHz proprietary protocols are also supported.

The nRF Connect SDK is the software development kit for the nRF5340 SoC, offering a complete solution that integrates the Zephyr RTOS, protocol stacks, application samples and hardware drivers."

[Amanda Hsieh]

Hi, 

You can use the nRF5340 Audio DK (HW) and nRF Connect SDK (SW) to start the Auracast development without requiring additional third-party protocol stacks. The nRF5340 Audio documentation includes sample applications and guides for implementing LE Audio features. 

Regards,
Amanda H.

[Nick_RA]

Thank you, I'll look at the docs. One further question if I may as I don't yet have a 5340DK - is there any documentation on power consumption? Specifically for LE audio source or unicast + advertising. The 5340 is included in your online power profiler but not for LE audio modes it seems.

Edit: I notice from the SDK docs that audio applications are marked Experimental and as such not recommended for production. Is there a roadmap date when this is expected to mature? I'm researching for a commercial production application so this really puts me back to the original question.

[Amanda Hsieh]

Hi, 

Nick_RA said:

is there any documentation on power consumption? Specifically for LE audio source or unicast + advertising.

Unfortunately, we don't have such data. The power consumption would be different depending on the configuration like bitrate, retransmission times ..., etc., so it is hard to give a solid value. 

Nick_RA said:

Is there a roadmap date when this is expected to mature?

Please contact your regional sales manager or use the form of Sales related questions for the roadmap/schedule. 

-Amanda H.