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Wireless Networking Communications Music Technology

Bluetooth Will Support Hearing Aids, Sharing, and a Better Audio Codec (theverge.com) 84

Posted by BeauHD from the new-and-improved-features dept.
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Verge: Now that most smartphones don't have headphone jacks, there's no shortage of complaints about Bluetooth. This year at CES, the industry group in charge of defining the standard, the Bluetooth SIG, is introducing new features that should address some of them. Later this year, it will finalize new support for Bluetooth LE Audio, which is an umbrella term for a bunch of new features for Bluetooth devices. The new features include higher-quality audio, hearing aid support, broadcasting to many people, and working better with wireless earbuds. Unfortunately, as is the way with all industry specs, it will take some time for these features to make their way into consumer products. The old joke that "Bluetooth will be better next year" still holds true.

The feature that will likely affect the most people is the new "Low Complexity Communication Codec," or LC3. LC3 simultaneously reduces power consumption while increasing audio quality. Right now, the lowest common denominator for Bluetooth audio is the relatively old and relatively bad SBC codec, though many phones support Qualcomm's proprietary codec, AptX. In order to get SBC to sound good, you have to increase the bitrate, which increases power consumption. The Bluetooth SIG claims that, in its testing, users preferred the new LC3 codec, even at significantly lower bitrates. The group is also finally beefing up official support for Bluetooth hearing aids. It has worked in conjunction with a European hearing instrument association to ensure broad support in the coming years, including working with TVs and other devices. A new "broadcast" feature will theoretically allow an entire movie theater audience to use their Bluetooth headphones to tune in to the movie, although how exactly the pairing process would work is "TBD," the report says.

Bluetooth LE will natively support multistream audio, which "means wireless earbuds will be able to receive their own independent signal from a phone instead of having to communicate with each other," the report adds. "Multistream also will allow for easier sharing of Bluetooth audio among multiple users from the same source."
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Bluetooth Will Support Hearing Aids, Sharing, and a Better Audio Codec More

Bluetooth Will Support Hearing Aids, Sharing, and a Better Audio Codec

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  • Dupe. (Score:4, Insightful)

    by pz ( 113803 ) on Wednesday January 08, 2020 @11:48PM (#59601600) Journal

    Dupe.

    https://mobile.slashdot.org/st... [slashdot.org]

    At least it isn't still on the front page, like the last one.

    But the real question is: why isn't there an easy way to report duplicate articles?

  • Comment removed (Score:3, Insightful)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Thursday January 09, 2020 @12:04AM (#59601618)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion

    • Re:That's a new level of retarded... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Ungrounded Lightning ( 62228 ) on Thursday January 09, 2020 @12:16AM (#59601640) Journal

      Yeah, I want to listen to the f***king movie on my $200 airpods instead of the theatre's $125,000.00 sound system.

      How do these people's brains work, where they think "this would be a good use"?

      Maybe not for you.

      But how about the hearing impaired, who need a hearing aid with a custom-programmed DSP to render the sound into a sensation corresponding more closely to what a person with normal hearing would get from the air in the theatre?

      Or how about the people who'd rather hear the movie than the raucous theatre-goers and their cell phones. For them those $200ish noise-cancelling phones might just sound a bunch better than a theatre sound system of any price. (Also: They'll still benefit from the theatre's woofers and sub-woofers, which will do a dandy job of giving them the feel of the sound.)

      With enough channels and a 9-axis (3-linear, 3-twist, 3-compass) MEMS gyro/accelerometer/magnetometer the phones might give a much better surround effect, too.

      • Or how about the people who'd rather hear the movie than the raucous theatre-goers and their cell phones.

        You live in a shit society. Can't say I've ever had that problem.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by ddtmm ( 549094 )
        I'm not so sure how well noise cancelling headphones will work, because the outside sound material is the same as what's trying to be heard inside the headphones. Might cancel itself out. Depending on how far you are from the speakers there will probably be a spot in the theatre where the sound in the headphones is in phase with the sound from the speakers and may end up confusing the noise cancelling process. Or not...

    • A new "broadcast" feature will theoretically allow an entire movie theater audience to use their Bluetooth headphones to tune in to the movie, although how exactly the pairing process would work is "TBD," the report says.

      That's the worst example ever. Yeah, I want to listen to the fucking movie on my $200 airpods instead of the theatre's $125,000.00 sound system.

      How do these people's brains work, where they think "this would be a good use"?

      So I hear the movie over the noise of the shitty kids seated behind me whose parent can't be bothered to teach their kids to be quiet. So that i cnan hear the movie over the conversation of the teens next to me are having rather than watch the movie. So the hearing impaired guy can pair his hearing aid rather than keep asking his wife what the characters said.

      • Comment removed based on user account deletion

      • Seriously, this is your job too!
        If they bother YOU, stand up for yourself, goddammit!
        Follow Sun Tsu's rule: They get exactly ONE warning. Since there might have been a misunderstanding. Then they are asked whether they fully understood you.
        If the agree, and do it again, or if they don't agree... BEHEAD THEM. (Or rather: stand up, and call. security RIGHT AWAY. Do not stop until you get your will. And get your money back too, for the theater management not screening for assholes, and not upholding the deal y

      • Comment removed based on user account deletion

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by ddtmm ( 549094 )
        And there you have it... a whole new generation of ignorant children that never learned to act respectfully in a public space because everyone else just shut them out of their proximity. Not much different than the problem of iPads raising kids.

    • Re:That's a new level of retarded... (Score:5, Informative)

      by kriston ( 7886 ) on Thursday January 09, 2020 @01:32AM (#59601762) Homepage Journal

      Pretty sure that's going to use multicast technology that has been part of BlueTooth L2CAP from the beginning.

      No biggie.

    • A new "broadcast" feature will theoretically allow an entire movie theater audience to use their Bluetooth headphones to tune in to the movie, although how exactly the pairing process would work is "TBD," the report says.

      That's the worst example ever. Yeah, I want to listen to the fucking movie on my $200 airpods instead of the theatre's $125,000.00 sound system.

      Not only that, they'll all shout at their buddies because they're wearing headphones.

      At least their phones wont ring though and they'll be able to chat with headphone audio.

      How do these people's brains work, where they think "this would be a good use"?

      Spot the insular forum member...

      If there's various audio tracks available, eg. different languages, then it's a very good idea.

      eg. Our local IMAX gives you open headphones to listen to the commentary track over the top of the soundtrack that's coming from the $500,000 sound system around you. You can select commentary in various language

      • WTF? Why would you *voluntarily* invite some dumbass ruining your movie by talking over it? Even if it is the the producer himself, it will not be your own experience anymore, and you will miss half the movie. And if the movie is bad enough that that is OK (like, let's face it, any Übermensch, err, "super hero" movie), why did you go watch it anyway?

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by ddtmm ( 549094 )

        coming from the $500,000 sound system around you.

        And that's why it's a $500,000 system. Which we pay for one way of the other...

      • Yes, the various audio tracks is what I was about to mention myself. Imagine a movie that was intentionally enhanced where the main character could hear some radio chatter over his earpiece. You get to be that character, and you can only experience it through this. Sure it might be a bit tacky and only work a few times, but the possibilities are endless. Nobody is saying this has to be limited to simply mirroring the exact audio coming out of the theater's speakers.
        Plus broadcast will have uses outside the

    • My friend, these are the same shit-for-brains morons who accept 128 Kbps audio files as an acceptable substitute for a CD or good vinyl record played on a 50 year old, kick-ass stereo system you inherited from your dad.

      • Yea 128 kbps seams a little on the light side, unless some new lossless codecs have come along lately)If you goto 256 kbos however things start getting interesting. And the Iâ(TM)cant here niticable difference between a cd and 128 kbps crowd, well discounting impared herring, they might still be right, heap headphones in nosy environments (at work/working out etc)

      • I found in a proper ABX test that I cannot tell 128kb/s AAC, Vorbis or modern MP3 from a lossless one.

        And unless you are an audio engineer, it is highly likely that neither can you.
        So kindly shut it with your clueless snobbery.

        In any case, I go to the cinema for the directional audio, and proper earth-shattering bass of a THX theatre, and for field-of-view-filling 4K images long before HD even existed. Apart from the exerience of experiencing feelings together with your buddies.

        • If you think optimal 128 Kbps under absolutely ideal conditions is what most people listening to 128Kbps hear, you're either an idiot or just plain full of crap. Take your accusations of snobbery and shove them far up your ass...right next to your head.

      • Comment removed based on user account deletion

    • better use - tourism! (Score:5, Interesting)

      by bussdriver ( 620565 ) on Thursday January 09, 2020 @04:19AM (#59602016)

      I will never forget the audio tour at Alcatraz. If you could use this system properly, you could simply wonder around a museum or whatever and have headphones alone without a playing device, the building would have it. It could possibly switch sources by where you are in the building... well, that is for the next bluetooth since whatever they come up with will be wrong again in some way...

      could be useful for haunted houses too.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Misagon ( 1135 )

      The only real use-case I can think of for this would be when movies are dubbed in a different language than the original.
      Where I live, only foreign kids movies get dubbed - but some, that could be enjoyed by both adults and kids get different shows in original and local language. With the broadcast feature, adults in the audience could wear the headphones and the kids not.

      • In Luxemburg, you usually get movies in their original language, and in German and French dub versions, as is normal for all movies in those countries. Usually with subtitles in one or two other languages, to server the diverse clientele.

        (Everybody in Luxemburg speaks Luxemburgish, French and German, apart from whatever other languages, like English, he might have picked in higher education. But the up to 50% immigrants (yes, I'm serious) might speak only one of those. ... But hey, we are living proof that

    • Dumb, but helpful if you're surreptitiously recording a movie and want a soundtrack without coughing and mumbling and laughing and popcorn-munching in it.
    • yeah but it also means I can pump it to multiple rooms in my house with inexpensive $2 speakers which will be pretty cool
    • You've never attended a conference held in a language you don't speak, with simultaneous translation.

      Or, for that matter, watched a film in a language you're only marginally competent in. where you'd want the dubbed soundtrack. Or even, a language you're fluent in, but with a heavy dialect - try a Scottish or Liverpudlian movie.

  • The other way round?

    ie Hearing Aids supporting BlueTooth.

    I would be surprised if some of the expensive ones didn't do this already. Of course there's no way your insurance is going to pay for it.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by diems ( 6396892 )

      Yea dunno what they mean by that. Cochlear implants already support bluetooth. And yes you gotta pay extra for it.

    • My hearing aid supports Bluetooth. I can load an app to tweak the hearing aid settings. For example, I can filter out background noise to better hear a person talking to me in a crowded restaurant. I can't play music via my hearing aid, but I know that more expensive models let you do this.

    • The problem is that the "Classic" Bluetooth audio streaming is too power hungry for hearing aids. Bluetooth earbuds only last a few hours, and people want to be able to use their hearing aids all day, and typically the hearing aid has a smaller battery too.

  • "New Features" translates to "More Profit" (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Required Snark ( 1702878 ) on Thursday January 09, 2020 @12:26AM (#59601660)
    1. Higher prices guaranteed.

    2. Current devices will not be compatible with new hardware.

    Here's how it works. An new international standard is established though one of the standards bodies. These are non-profits and are supported by governments and large companies for the "greater good". It's expensive to participate because you have to go to meetings held all over the world for a period of years.

    All the new technology used is given to a Licensing Authority by the committee members. Existing technology is "encumbered" so it isn't used, and the new stuff will be so much better!

    After the standard is accepted no one can legally use it without getting a license from the License Authority. They divide the revenue stream between the various participants.

    INSTANT PROFIT

    It's an international technology cartel masquerading as a international standard.

    The license fees are typically the dominant cost passed on to the consumer. That's why HDMI cables are not cheep.

    I saw this first hand when I was working on HDTV standards in the 2000s.

    • Nowadays, you make more profit by offering *fewer* features!

      Remove features, rause the prise, boom, you're Apple now!

      Also, it helps to be low-key condescending and overbearing, by always using "the average user" as an argument to cripple things more aka make it "simpler"... Implying the average user is a retard without saying it.
      PROTIP: With saying they are retarded, plow through until they *are*.

    • Oh no we're not getting new stuff for free. My old stuff doesn't do the new stuff because technology isn't magic. Wowes me!

      Grow up.

    • Bluetooth is dead-ending with its current capabilities. Lower latency and improved audio codecs and swift pairing (on a small number of devices) aren't enough.

      The lack of the ability to pair multiple listeners to a single transmitter has always been an annoyance (I mean it's a fucking radio transmission, right?). Why can't you have one phone playing on 3 different bluetooth speakers at once?

      I'd also argue that the inability of listeners (like headphones) to get audio simultaneously from multiple transmitt

      • New Features (Score:5, Insightful)

        by dtmos ( 447842 ) * on Thursday January 09, 2020 @10:26AM (#59602658)

        I want a set of headphones I can pair to my phone, my laptops, etc, and be able to sit down and have audio from them simultaneously. When I hear my phone's ringtone, I'll just pause my laptop audio or vice-versa, and not have to fuck around with clumsy pairing/re-pairing.

        That's exactly what the new Bluetooth specification is designed to do. You will be pleased.

        The lack of the ability to pair multiple listeners to a single transmitter has always been an annoyance (I mean it's a fucking radio transmission, right?). Why can't you have one phone playing on 3 different bluetooth speakers at once?

        For the following reasons:
        (1) -- Prior to this release, Bluetooth did not have a true isochronous (occurring at the same time) audio feature. There was no way to ensure that receiving devices would play a received audio packet at exactly the desired time -- especially if the receiving devices were not identical. Having three speakers produce audio at substantially random phase delays is a really terrible listening experience.
        (2) -- Wireless transmission is not perfect; even on a "good" path as many as ten percent of packets sent to each speaker are lost, and must be resent. The prior Bluetooth system did not have a scheme allowing a single transmitted packet to be independently ACKed by multiple devices (without interfering with each other) and, when an ACK was not received, resent. Note that time had to be set aside in the protocol for all this physical-layer stuff to happen (i.e., the worst-case number of retries sent) before the scheduled audio packet presentation time. This is especially difficult around the human body; the path loss from a back jeans pocket to the ear on the opposite side of the head is incredibly large, and the path loss from ear-to-ear is almost as bad. (The worst case, BTW, is the proverbial corn field, with no reflections from nearby walls, etc., which actually help a bit.)
        (3) -- Security and privacy are non-trivial. For example, you might want music from your phone playing to the external speakers, but not phone calls from (or to) your boss. However, if you're at home, and the call is from Grandma, maybe you do want the rest of the family to hear the call. Making the expected behavior both bulletproof and easy to use was not easy in earlier releases.

        It's kind of dumb the bluetooth standard got to this point without someone figuring out how to make these things happen.

        I agree that Bluetooth is at least five years late on this feature -- you won't get any argument from me on this point. In their defense, however, Bluetooth was originally designed to be a replacement for the desktop PC-to-printer cable when it was first released in 1999. Moving the specification from file transfer to isochronous audio, while (substantially) maintaining backwards compatibility, remains a nontrivial feat.

        • Security and privacy are non-trivial. For example, you might want music from your phone playing to the external speakers, but not phone calls from (or to) your boss. However, if you're at home, and the call is from Grandma, maybe you do want the rest of the family to hear the call. Making the expected behavior both bulletproof and easy to use was not easy in earlier releases.

          Wait, you mean it's rarely as easy as it appears to people who don't know what they're talking about? Unpossible!

  • ... now.

    Will they be compatible with this new stuff?

  • hearing aids need to be DRM free

  • Not true (Score:3)

    by axlash ( 960838 ) on Thursday January 09, 2020 @01:54AM (#59601798)

    Now that most smartphones don't have headphone jacks...

    Where did they get that from? The vast majority of smartphone users do not use top-of-the-range phones that dispense with headphone jacks.

    • Mod parent up, not even all flagship phones lack the jack today. On the latest Samsung galaxy series, only the Note lacks the 3.5mm jack. Most people don't buy a flagship phone. So the overwhelming majority of smartphones still have a jack, even when counting the ones being sold. Of all phones in use, I'd guess that even with iPhones more than half of those still in use have a jack.

    • Don't confuse price with quality and features.

      They might be insanely overpriced, but with all those even basic features missing, like a headphone jack, removable battery, easy repariability with a screwdriver, lack of replacement parts, sensible case that can't even handle falls, lack of card slots, maybe even lack of usb charging, and not even being damn computer to the end user, they are definitely the low end of phones!

      They are basically the equivalent to those 80s/90s single-game handheld "consoles" wit

    • Where did they get that from? The vast majority of smartphone users do not use top-of-the-range phones that dispense with headphone jacks.

      It seems to me that most smartphone makers and smartphone users dispensed with the 1/8" phone jack, but they didn't do away with the wires. Instead people use Lightning, USB-C, or some other USB connection (since Lightning is mostly just a conduit for USB), for audio. This is especially true for use cases of people listening to their phone (or similar portable device for music and communications) in a car, at home, or at their desk at work. At home or in the car the connection is to some kind of speaker

      • Nope .... Samsung Galaxy has a headphone Jack
        Sony Xperia has a Headphone jack
        Xiaomi Redmi has a headphone jack ... in fact the only ones who have dropped it are Apple ...

        • in fact the only ones who have dropped it are Apple ...

          It took only a few seconds in an internet search to prove this wrong. Try again.

    • What they meant is "most smartphones used by people who will jump at the chance to spend more money on whatever new thing we announce don't have headphone jacks"

  • "users preferred the new LC3 codec" (Score:3, Informative)

    by Knuckles ( 8964 ) <knuckles@@@dantian...org> on Thursday January 09, 2020 @03:18AM (#59601924)

    Over what, SBC or AptX?

  • Codec not needed, analog needed (Score:1, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward

    All the digital processing systems try to turn sound into a pre-processed "model", and especially to turn the gain up and down to compress 100 dB of auditory volume range into the roughly 20, maybe 40 dB they can "optimally present". But the gain control itself inserts frequency distorted phase lags and turns sharp sounds, like "t" or "p", into temporal smears with distortion of the "inhibitory" effects and the actual physical stimulation caused by sound in the inner ear. Robert Lickliter in the 1950's show

  • Already got all that, with this new tech: (Score:4, Informative)

    by BAReFO0t ( 6240524 ) on Thursday January 09, 2020 @06:41AM (#59602200)

    Full "uncrackable" hardware security. Extreme bandwidths. All codecs that exist are possible. Sharing is an integral feature. Costs almost nothing.

    It is called a
    Classic
    Application of
    Basic
    Line
    Electronics
    !

    • Full "uncrackable" hardware security. Extreme bandwidths. All codecs that exist are possible. Sharing is an integral feature. Costs almost nothing.

      It is called a
      Classic
      Application of
      Basic
      Line
      Electronics
      !

      Well done! A nicely constructed backronym.

      I remember having a conversation with a salesdriod at a cell phone store looking for a cellular internet connection for my home, as I was quite frustrated at my cable company and was looking for anything as an alternative. I asked if there were any hot spot devices that offered a wired connection as opposed to the Bluetooth and WiFi options he showed me. He tried to convince me I was just silly to ask for it.

      I ended up keeping my cable internet, replacing my rela

    • Really? But does that work wirelessly? People who say "my cable does this already" have seriously missed the point.

  • "Multistream also will allow for easier sharing of Bluetooth audio among multiple users from the same source."

    So Bluetooth nightclubs can open 24/7 without angering the neighbors?
    We'll finally get the drink we ordered and not the one the barkeeper misunderstood.
    What's not to like

  • I work with a guy that has a Bluetooth hearing aid, it works well. It's a little disconcerting seeing him answer the phone and talk to himself but hey the man canake out everything. Now maybe this article covers stereo bt hearing aids I didn't read it. https://www.starkey.com/blog/2... [starkey.com]
    • I have bluetooth hearing aids now (two years old) and have a Iphone 6 . Bt use sucks down batteries FAST listening to music and tv. Answering the phone and talking to yourself is nice feature. Old hearing aides that use the microphones in the hearing aid make the sound, sound like it comes from talking in a long cardboard tube. The bt transmitter in my OLD iphone has trouble keeping up so there can be dropouts of in one of my ears. My hearing aid looks like the starkey.com URL. I personally like bt in

  • Well the latest iPhone doesn't ... but the Samsung Galaxy does ... and so do almost all others ...

  • All I want from Bluetooth is to be able to conduct a phone call in my car without the audio dropping out.
    Maybe the right time to add different codecs and other new features would be after we get the basics working?

  • Now that most smartphones don't have headphone jacks ...

    Really? Most smartphones in use? Most smartphones currently for sale? Best-selling smartphones? Is this actually based on real numbers or just the impression of a tech reviewer who spends all day in the land of bleeding-edge devices and doesn't realize there are a lot of us out here still plugging in?

  • And I bet Microsoft will do crap all to support Bluetooth properly in windows. Connecting to a Bluetooth device is the most cumbersome process that makes me shake my head.

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