nRF5340 DK vs nRF5340 Audio DK

[PhilK]

Hello,

I'm new to the nRF5340 for BT/BLE; and was looking through older DevZone posts to see if I could find an answer to my question.  Specifically, in  RE: Query - Nordic nRF5340 - LE Audio Evaluation it is said: "The nRF5340 DK can be used to connect to PC to broadcast the audio but on the receiver side the nRF5340 Audio DK is needed."  I understand that many of the receiving applications will want to drive speakers/headphones/earphones and that the Cypress codec would facilitate that in the Audio version, but in my application I don't require that.  I'm planning on using a microphone as a source and my sink will likely be something like a Raspberry Pi (using I2S or possibly USB audio).  Does your statement hold in that situation, or can I use 2 nRF5340 DKs (and keep costs down a bit)?

Thank you in advance,

Phil

[Karl Ylvisaker]

Hello Phil,

I'm planning on using a microphone as a source and my sink will likely be something like a Raspberry Pi (using I2S or possibly USB audio).  Does your statement hold in that situation, or can I use 2 nRF5340 DKs (and keep costs down a bit)?

The reason why you would need 2 DKs is that you need one of them to be the gateway (sender/'initiator'), and on the to be headset device (receiver/'acceptor') device. If your Raspberry Pi is LE Audio compatible then it could function as one of these devices, bringing your need down to 1 nRF5340 Audio DK, but if it can not do LE Audio you will still need 2 nRF5340 Audio DKs to properly be able to test LE Audio.

If you have an LE Audio compatible phone then you could alternatively use the phone as your gateway, which would also reduce your requirements to 1 DK, but this would depend on which smartphone you have got.

Best regards,
Karl

[cmj]

Jumping onto this for a response before acquiring equipment - I'm looking to develop a iOS application to receive input from a MEMS microphone interfacing with a nRF5340 through I2S over BLE. Can I use a default nRF5340-DK for this or does it need to be the AUDIO-DK?

[dejans]

Hi cmj ,

It should be possible to use nrf5340-dk, but some work effort would be needed on your side as you would need to handle everything on your own (hardware and software). If you decide to go that path, you could refer to Thingy52 reference design. There are some relevant pages in the documentation - Thingy52, sound, streaming and streaming to mobile (iOS). If you encounter some issues, please make a new DevZone ticket.
With regard to iOS support, it seems that iOS devices do not support LE Audio at the moment. If you plan to make iOS application, you should check if there is LE Audio support for iOS.

Best regards,
Dejan