LE Audio and the Future of Hearing

Here’s an interesting NY Times rundown on BT codecs, including LC3 at the end. The guy says he was formerly marketing director for Dolby and worked on promoting the AAC codec but has no financial interest in Dolby or that technology since he left. He says expect LC3 products in late 2021 or 2022 without saying how he knows. Still looking for original reference I thought I saw. I have seen earlier predictions consistent with everyone’s hopes here.

Edit_Update: Apologies if someone has already published a link to the following PDF elsewhere on the forum but it’s a March, 2020, BT SIG Update to Bluetooth’s plans to take over the world! It shows the predicted and tremendous growth of BT (they hope) in virtually every segment of the economy, including BT Smart Cities! I hope that Phonak will take note (as a potential future Phonak customer vs. ReSound, Widex, Signia, etc) that the predictions show production of BT Classic only devices continuing to seriously decline and predicts that devices that are BT LE only or BT LE plus Classic will be the future market (see page 10 of PDF if included page ref in link doesn’t work). Doesn’t detail how BT LE Audio figures within the BT LE but since BT 5.2 is the latest version of the spec, it’s probably going to be that or higher that’s “BT LE” going forward.

35% of annual shipments by 2024
will be LE single-mode devices

https://www.bluetooth.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/2020_Market_Update-EN.pdf#page=10

Edit_Update: Potentially the “35% of devices shipped by 2024 BT LE only” - hard to interpret but perhaps it means by 2024 a Phonak Classic BT-only approach won’t work with a lot of devices shipped. Perhaps if the 35% of devices shipped are all other brand HA’s, it won’t matter so much …

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When the LC3 codec comes to hearing aids, smartphones, TVs, computers, usb dongles, etc.
So there will be no need for streamers like tv connector, tv link etc. This is great for us who wear hearing aids, and for a hearing aid vendor I don’t think so, they make money selling these accessories so I don’t believe selling devices with LC3 will be that way almost because their sales of these supplements would decline.
That is my conclusion, when I bought the Phonak Naida Q50, and bought with it Compilot1 which was current at the time. The shock was that I couldn’t buy a newer Compilot, say Compilot 2 or Compilot Air (no neck). Each series of apparatus had its own compilot. I then wondered, why can’t Compilot be universal?
My compilot broke down over time so I was forced to buy another one and the other one is no longer on sale so I bought on ebay the remaining copy that someone is selling as a surplus that didn’t sell.

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Phones will ship with dual Bluetooth radios for many years I think. What will eventually kill Classic BT in hearing aids is not the lack of devices to connect to, but the availability of a better alternative. I wish they’d thought of better labels to differentiate BLE from LE Audio. There’s so much confusion out there.

Any hearing aid manufacturer that tries to lock in accessories with a proprietary connection will be last on the list I consider when I buy my next set of aids.

From the various videos I’ve seen, their thinking is that LE Audio will align hearing aids with hearables. This is supposed to remove the stigma factor and they hope to sell a whole lot more product to people who should be wearing aids but currently aren’t. That should more than make up for loss of profit from selling proprietary accessories.

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“LE Audio’s most impactful feature is bringing audio and data together natively in one radio for the first time in an interoperable manner.”

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This is an interesting video to me where the person explained the operation of the new codec.

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There’s a review of Resound ONE hearing aids claiming ‘forward compatibility’ with LE Audio.

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“Low Energy Audio and the Future of ASHA”. A bit of history and some speculation. Well-worth reading if you’re interested in Bluetooth and hearing aids.

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Thanks. Pretty good, in-depth and honest review (given the limitations of “honest” reviews). Too bad that the ReSound One M&RIE receiver is limited with folks with losses up to about 65 dB. Since I’m waiting for several years for new HA’s, maybe the ReSound TWO will somehow overcome that limitation. But good to hear that ReSound is all in on BT LE Audio and leading the pack (unlike Mr. Phonak) on BT technologies for the future.

I’d still want to get some confirmation from the manufacturer if forward compatibility with LE Audio was important to me. Maybe there has been and I’ve missed it…?

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The line in his review “Their compatibility with Bluetooth LE Audio also means that when it arrives, I will have access to those fantastic abilities.” I don’t think he’d have that line in paragraph one of his review, the lead paragraph, unless he was very sure (presumably through ReSound) that it was coming for the One’s. I’ll see what else I can dig up elsewhere. If Cooling’s wrong, he’s really putting his reputation on the line… Like for any folks who rush out and buy if from his semi-glowing review.

I’ve asked him for some elaboration on Facebook. I’ll report back if he responds.

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I notice that Dr Cliff has posted a review of the Resound ONE and has included a link to a previous video he did on LE Audio. Pity I haven’t got audio on my computer at the moment, but putting 2 and 2 together…?

Resound ONE video review: ReSound ONE Hearing Aid Detailed Review - YouTube
LE Audio Bluetooth Video: https://youtu.be/nDCsif0nhEY

Edit: He does say that Resound ONE will be compatible with LE Audio @ 10:57 in the review. But then he says that you’ll be able to talk into the phone or use a pendant. One of the big advantages of LE Audio is being completely hands-free, so…? Also, going back to the review I posted earlier Geoffrey Cooling says you ‘might’ be able to go handsfree. Clarification would be good.

Still, HUGE news imo. The first hearing aid with LE Audio.

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As you know @d_Wooluf, Resound One are certified for Bluetooth 5.2:
https://launchstudio.bluetooth.com/ListingDetails/111580

That means that the chip itself is compatible with the upcoming LE Audio features but will propably need firmware updates to enable things like LC3 audio and Audio sharing (that’s me speculating).

So while the LE Audio specs is not finalized, the chip itself should be able to do things like Audio sharing and LC3 audio, with software upgrades.

Edit: And since the LE Audio specs is not yet finalized, I believe it’s hard for the HA companies to announce support for it. Even older hearing aids could be compatible with Bluetooth LE Audio, for example the connection between e.g. ConnectClip and Oticon hearing aid could be very similiar to Bluetooth LE Audio and thus make it possible to have something like a Bluetooth 5.2 USB dongle on your computer connecting directly to the hearing aids without ConnectClip etc.

I put this question to Geoffrey Cooling:
Just wondering how confident you are about ‘forward compatibility’ with LE Audio.

His response:
as confident as I can be, they have the compatibility, what they do with it?

which makes me think that maybe he’s assuming LE Audio from the existence of the BT 5.2 certified chip in the hearing aid. I agree with @Spindel that this seems at least likely, but I’m not sure that it’s a done deal. I still wouldn’t buy the aid and just assume it’s going to be updated. I asked Geoffrey Cooling a follow up question. We’ll see.

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Competition is nice. My plan is to see what several different brands offer in BT LE Audio down the line and not get too enthusiastic about any brand like ReSound just because it might be first in line. If as you say, a true, full implementation can offer handsfree communication (decent input from external mics), that would be a selling point for me over brands that require you to use your phone or a remote mic for voice input (perhaps because their external mic situation isn’t good enough for voice input - an app switch between external mics vs. phone or remote mic input would be nice, too, to use according to the noise or other environmental situation).

Fully agree. It’s just a ‘first swallow of the summer’ situation (choose your own local bird). See the first one and you know more are on the way.

I’d expect easy switching between phone mic, external/remote mic, and hearing aid mics. Re hearing aid mics, if Phonak can do it, everyone else can.

Even if a hearing aid comes with a new LC3 codec but you still have to wait for the smarpthone and other devices that support 5.2 to arrive. And that takes time, at least a year.

It is better to wait because the prices of the same can fall, the usb dongle for bluetooth 5.2 can be expensive.

I would agree that there’s no benefit in rushing. In comparison, BT 5 came out in 2016. I believe Samsung S8 was one of the first phones to come out with it in Spring 2017. I bought a Nokia 6.1 in Summer of 2018. One of the reasons was BT 5. It’s now 2020 and there’s no advantage to having BT 5 with regards to hearing aid use. (If the phone also supported ASHA, a case can be made for BT 5)
I think 1st QTR 2021 is likely the earliest we’re going to see BT 5.2 phones that support LC3 Codec.

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So a major manufacturer of SoC’s expects the standard to be ratified this year. From LE Audio: The latest Bluetooth Audio Technology | Qualcomm

Q: When is LE Audio coming to Qualcomm Technologies’ Platforms/SoCs?

A: The Bluetooth SIG has already announced the new standard. However, the profiles still need to be ratified; that is expected to happen late 2020.
Qualcomm Technologies intends to qualify compliant silicon and software as soon as the SIG has finalized the standard.

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Qualcomm Technologies has just announced to team up with Jacoti an audio technology company, seems this is moving pretty quickly now, but still looking at 2nd quarter of 2021.
They say " The integration will result in next-gen TWS earphones and Bluetooth headsets that provide accurate personalized hearing assistance to users with mild hearing impairments using Qualcomm QCC5100 Series Ultra-Low Power Bluetooth SoCs
QCC5100 supports data transfers up to 2Mbps and a Bluetooth 5 dual-mode radio that lets you stream audio to multiple devices at once.

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