bad idea, companies needs to focus on getting power consumption down for hearing aid… they are so many complaints of hearing aid battery life in 2022… looking at phonak, yes you…
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Intel announced today the 13th Gen Intel Core Mobile Platforms (H, P- and U-Series) which includes Bluetooth 5.3 and Bluetooth LE Audio support. This will increase the availability of Bluetooth LE Audio capabilities on laptop devices.
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Really!? I planned to upgrade my good old PC buddy to gen 13th. Good thing I skipped 12th gen and wait for it.
But wonder, didn’t Bluetooth 5.3 dongle work the same thing? You want 5.3 and LE audio. Buy Bluetooth dongle that support it?
Yes, a BT dongle that supports LE Audio would work. I’m unaware of any that are available. and I only know of one that supports BT 5.3 and is not of a major brand
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Interesting. How does Bluetooth of any flavor translate all the way up the food chain to the CPU? Intel is basically spec-ing every last element of motherboard design? Or is this some parallel announcement of radio hardware?
I don’t know, but Intel commonly requires a new motherboard chipset with each generation of new cpus.
I doubt it would be a “requirement” but since BT is getting more and more common on motherboards, it would make sense at this time to have it be BT 5.3.
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They just like to announce new hardware with bigger and badder firmware when in reality the thing can be upgraded from bluetooth 5.0 to BT 5.3 in firmware…
it is all about $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$
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Well, it’s not on the CPU as such. It will be a chip on the motherboard. Last year it was at 5.2 probably, this year 5.3. Might as well have the latest.
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The company has revealed that it will soon roll out an update for the [Pixel Buds Pro] to enable Spatial Audio support with head tracking.
Spatial Audio is reportedly only supported by devices that are compatible with Bluetooth Low Energy (LE) audio.
So if you take those two sentences together does that mean that Pixel Buds will “soon” get upgraded to LE Audio?
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I wonder who adopts that route? Most of the radio hardware I’ve seen uses a plug-in module to the motherboard. Maybe they just mean the software stack in the BIOS now supports it. I remember when Intel took over the USB stack there was a rough period there.
It is Nura Bluetooth 5.3 Audio transmitter:
This does not claim to support LE Audio. (It’s also only available for “preorder”)
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@grantb5 I don’t know how things are organised these days. I assumed that somewhere there’s an identifiable bit of silicon to which the CPU (whatever that is now) offloads wireless communication. On Snapdragon SoC’s for Android phones it’s called “FastConnect”. It’s handles Bluetooth communication up to a particular version number. So, new Bluetooth version requires a new version of FastConnect.
Not always, some Snapdragon phone uses Broadcom chip which can be better than Qualcomm chip. It cost money to use / to get the FastConnect firmware and radio hardware.
Can you give any examples, particularly for high end phones? Thanks.
S22 Ultra uses Broadcom chip
Broadcom BCM4389 Wi-Fi 6E & Bluetooth 5.x
however, regular s22 uses the Qualcomm FastConnect chip
Qualcomm WCN6856 WiFi 6/6E & Bluetooth 5.3
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Thanks. This is really interesting. From Quallcom’s website I’d gotten the impression that FastConnect was an integrated part of the SOC, but obviously not true. I do not understand much of the terminology in the diagrams. Where does the cell modem (LTE, 5G) “live” in that complicated mess? Is it part of the SOC or also separate like the WiFi/BT chip? Thanks again.
It is misleading, It just mean it is just easier to integrate into your product than your competitors such as broadcom
It is a complicated mess,. modem processor is part of the SoC but there are supporting chips that Qualcomm need you to add before 4g/5g works. which cost $$$$
Just by having the chip itself is not enough. There is a baseband firmware/OS you need to buy before use… even more $$$$$$$$$
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Thanks. Guess this demonstrates why buying a phone is a lot more than just the SOC. It’s the whole package.
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I worked on Qualcomm snapdragon SoC family in my previous life… it was a interesting beast to say the least.
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