somebodyelse
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Pine64 announced a couple of bluetooth audio projects in this month's blog update. Both use the Bestechnic BES2300 bluetooth chip which is apparently mostly used in wireless earbuds and hearing aids. The board has USB, coax and optical digital in and out, mini-jack audio out (not sure about in), a Pi compatible header (not sure what's on it), lcd/touchscreen connectors and an audio port that may be for a mic array. Details are a bit thin at this stage. The standout for the wireless earbuds is that as well as charging, they also have a wired interface for firmware updates.
Note that I said projects rather than products - they're an unusual company that mostly aims to produce hardware that open source programmers would like to work with, but can't produce themselves. The software side remains up to the community, so can work out well or badly depending on whether it attracts people with the right skills and motivation, or unforseen roadblocks like a key part turning out not to play as well as expected with open software development. Typically they'll give some prototypes to a few people with a decent track record to see what they can make of it, then a small batch of beta hardware for the brave, and further batches if demand holds up. It can take some time between initial release and the thing actually being practically useful for an everyday task. Early batches can have hardware issues that are often improved in later batches, but not always. Support for failed hardware is patchy. They could be clearer about this to manage expectations, but based on some people's reaction to the PinePhone Pro expectation and enthusiasm trumps explicit warnings in big bold text in the product description.
Anyway back to the bluetooth hardware. The chip clearly has some reasonable capacity for DSP, but the key will be how usable it is - DSP cores don't always have the toolchain necessary for open development. If it works then at the least there's scope to EQ to target(s) as a starting point, then maybe tune for your ear and/or HRTF. ANC perhaps, and maybe eventually more complex things with the mic array. On the board front it might be as simple as a digital in / digital out pass-through EQ device as some have asked for, or the basis for an active wireless speaker setup.
Note that I said projects rather than products - they're an unusual company that mostly aims to produce hardware that open source programmers would like to work with, but can't produce themselves. The software side remains up to the community, so can work out well or badly depending on whether it attracts people with the right skills and motivation, or unforseen roadblocks like a key part turning out not to play as well as expected with open software development. Typically they'll give some prototypes to a few people with a decent track record to see what they can make of it, then a small batch of beta hardware for the brave, and further batches if demand holds up. It can take some time between initial release and the thing actually being practically useful for an everyday task. Early batches can have hardware issues that are often improved in later batches, but not always. Support for failed hardware is patchy. They could be clearer about this to manage expectations, but based on some people's reaction to the PinePhone Pro expectation and enthusiasm trumps explicit warnings in big bold text in the product description.
Anyway back to the bluetooth hardware. The chip clearly has some reasonable capacity for DSP, but the key will be how usable it is - DSP cores don't always have the toolchain necessary for open development. If it works then at the least there's scope to EQ to target(s) as a starting point, then maybe tune for your ear and/or HRTF. ANC perhaps, and maybe eventually more complex things with the mic array. On the board front it might be as simple as a digital in / digital out pass-through EQ device as some have asked for, or the basis for an active wireless speaker setup.
