Development kit for wireless earbuds

[MagnusPetersson]

Hi,

I wonder which setup that is best to begin with to develop wireless earbuds.

I'm looking at https://www.nordicsemi.com/Products/Low-power-short-range-wireless/nRF52840 and https://www.nordicsemi.com/Software-and-tools/Development-Kits/nRF52840-DK

Is it possible to develop earbuds with that development kit or do you have any other recommendations?

[Karl Ylvisaker]

Hello,

Just to clarify, when you say that you would like to develop wireless earbuds, are you here intending to use the coming Low-Energy Audio protocol, or the established Bluetooth Classic protocol?
Bluetooth classic is what is currently used in most speakers and headphones, but LE Audio is likely the new standard once it has been released.
Just in case, I will also mention that none of our nRF devices support Bluetooth Classic. 

When it comes to using regular Bluetooth Low-Energy to do audio transfer it is possible, but you will probably not achieve your sought-after quality in the audio.
There are a number of tickets discussing this possibility in the forum, such as this and this.
Please also be aware that if you need the full solution with the Bluetooth 5.2 stack and the LC3 codec then you will need to use the nRF5340 device, as the nRF52 devices lack the performance to run the LC3 codec on top of the Bluetooth stack. 

Also, the nRF53 has an improved audio PLL which is lacking in the nRF52 series, making it more suited for audio application overall.

Is it possible to develop earbuds with that development kit or do you have any other recommendations?

This depends on your answer to the question above - I will answer as soon as I know which protocol you intend to use! :) 

Best regards,
Karl 

[MagnusPetersson]

Hi,

thanks for you response!

I saw that the BLE Audio is coming so that is really interesting, but until that is released I could go with classic as well. So I guess you answered that question too.

So I either wait for the nRF3 or get a Bluetooth classic device from another supplier?

[Karl Ylvisaker]

MagnusPetersson said:

thanks for you response!

No problem at all, I am happy to help!

MagnusPetersson said:

I saw that the BLE Audio is coming so that is really interesting, but until that is released I could go with classic as well.

MagnusPetersson said:

So I either wait for the nRF3 or get a Bluetooth classic device from another supplier?

Yes, this is essentially the available options. Personally I really do look forward to the LE Audio specification release, because it holds such a huge potential for wireless audio, but for the time being most / all of the conventional headphones / speakers use Bluetooth Classic.

Best regards,
Karl