Category: Current and Future Trends

Articles

Google Nest video doorbell – to support season-specific custom sounds

Special Ringtones Coming to Your Google Nest Doorbell for Halloween, Diwali, Oktoberfest – CNET

More festive doorbell chimes arrive on Google Nest | ZDNET

From the horse’s mouth

Google

Learn how we fine-tune the Nest doorbell ringtones (blog.google)

My Comments

Desktop operating systems started using audio customisations since the late 1980s

From the late 1980s to the mid 1990s, regular computers and their desktop operating systems introduced various multimedia abilities including file-based audio recording and playback. This came along with various user-experience customisation options like background wallpapers and interface elements that can be set to a user’s preferred colours.

These functions came together in the form of the ability for users to determine what kind of sound the computer makes for particular events like the startup sound, error sound or new message notification.

This kind of customisability was extended in the 2000s with mobile phones supporting ringtone customisation including downloadable ringtones. This feature was seen as important as a way for people to know if it is their phone that is ringing when it rings.

But Google has added this kind of customisability to their Nest Doorbell which is a video doorbell that works via your home network and Internet. Here, they have started offering special ringtones for this product that people can use for particular occasions like Halloween, Thanksgiving or Diwali. This goes hand-in-glove with you decorating your house in particular ways for particular seasons.

These devices would support the seasonality of particular occasion thus allowing the customised sound to play for the duration of that occasion. This avoids the audible equivalent of leaving decorations up beyond the applicable season which can look tacky.

I most likely would see a lot of companies who sell network-connected doorbell / intercom systems start investing in ringtone customisations for these devices. This could include user-supplied ringtones usually in common audio file formats, enabling ringtones to be applicable for particular seasons or user-defined periods, or bringing in brands and talent to create custom ringtones.

You just never know what other “Internet-of-Things” devices and platforms will end up with user experiences that are customisable by the end-user in the same way that computers and smartphones have been customised by their users.

Article

Apple to lead the way with having smart lock and digital key management as part of a smartphone’s operating system.

Apple to add digital key sharing to iOS • NFCW

My Comments

Apple is the first mobile-operating-system developer to integrate the management of digital keys for buildings or cars within its iOS operating system. This includes the ability to share keys to others or revoke shared keys within your iPhone’s user experience.

It is because of an increasing number of security solutions for buildings, vehicles and the like that use your smartphone as a virtual keyring for digital keys.

Previously, what happened with digital keys was that they were dependent on apps specific to a vendor, hotel or similar smart-lock platform and you had to work these keys from that app’s user interface.

This could lead to confusion about apps that you need to use and can get very messy when you have multiple places to think of and you aren’t sure which platform they are associated with. It can also lead to screen clutter associated with the apps and you may find that they take up too much internal storage space especially if you are responsible for many places.

The approach now is to implement the digital wallet functionality offered by Apple Wallet and is part of iOS. As well, you use what the operating system offers to share out keys or revoke shared keys. That means you can use first-party messaging software like Apple iMessage or Apple Mail to share the keys; or you could use third-party messaging software like Signal, WhatsApp or Outlook Mail to share these keys.

Most likely this will be facilitated with the “share / take-further” function offered as part of the operating system, represented in iOS with a square and triangle symbol.

The problem with this functionality is whether there is the ability to limit the shared key’s functionality when you share it out. That is to limit the number of times one can use the key or the time period they can use it for, or even to limit the doors or cars that the particular digital key can open. In some cases, it may also be about implementing multi-factor authentication for these keys.

hen there is the question about what kind of interface that this Apple Wallet key-management ability will support. That is whether to use NFC “touch-and-go” operation, Bluetooth LE wireless-link or similar techniques to link with the door lock or car.

The other issue that will come about is whether Google will integrated this kind of digital key management within Android, whether as part of the digital wallets available as apps for that platform or simply within the operating system. Also it can be about whether regular computers that run desktop operating systems could have this kind of digital key management built in to their operating systems, which can be of benefit for people who manage buildings or vehicle fleets.

It can also include allowing apps and Websites to add or remove digital keys to the smartphone wallet. This will be seen as important for corporate, hotel and delivery use cases where interaction with smart locks is part of a transaction, such as registering the delivery / collection of goods or as part of a time and attendance requirement for home care and allied workers.

What this will be essentially about is to provide a one-stop shop for managing digital keys for locations or vehicles you are responsible for using your smartphone.

Article – From the horse’s mouth

Multi-antenna Wi-Fi 6 and similar routers like this D-Link router could be part of allowing Wi-Fi to work as a location-tracking, range-finding and way-finding technology

Wi-Fi Alliance

Wi-Fi Location™: Performance drivers for Wi-Fi® ranging technologies and its achievable accuracies

My Comments

Qualcomm is driving Wi-Fi further as a location and ranging tool through the use of its own silicon. This is in addition to the Ekahau effort to use Wi-Fi as a real-time location system for business.

But it’s more about making sure that the Wi-Fi network is capable to answer Bluetooth and UWB wireless technologies in this space. This is being facilitated by Wi-Fi devices having multiple antennas and operating on multiple bands, That can exploit different bands’ radio-frequency characteristics like transmission / reception range.

In the business world, this may be about staff or asset tracking, indoor navigation amongst other uses. It may even be about “pointing” a laptop, tablet or smartphone to the closest printer or similar peripheral so you cut down on the amount of time it takes to select that peripheral. Airports, shopping centres and similar places will benefit in the form of enhanced indoor navigation for staff and end-users.

But as far as the Wi-Fi home network is concerned, this could come in to its own in a strong way.

This would be facilitated by the use of most recent-issue value-priced and premium Wi-Fi routers having multiple antennas thanks to newer Wi-Fi iterations like Wi-Fi 5, Wi-Fi 6 and Wi-Fi 7 that implement various MIMO techniques; along with the ability to work on multiple wavebands.

Then there is an increased interest in multiple-access-point Wi-Fi networks thanks to Wi-Fi repeaters, distributed Wi-Fi (mesh) networks and access points that use Ethernet or wired “no-new-wires” networking technology like powerline networks as a backhaul. This is often implemented to fill in Wi-Fi dark spots within your home caused by things like highly-dense building materials or metal used as part of building materials or insulation.

Even distributed Wi-Fi setups like this NETGEAR Orbi with WI-Fi 6 system will serve the same purpose

One key use case for the home is the smart-home technology based on “Internet of Things” devices. The classic use cases would be the robot vacuum cleaners that move around your house, keeping the floors clean or the robot lawnmowers that keep your lawn mown down.

In the context of home and automotive security, it could be about geofencing and similar algorithms that limit the operation of smart locks or vehicle locking systems. It could even extend to preemptive control of heating / air-conditioning and lighting so when you are near home, the heating or lights come on.

To some extent, this could extent to healthcare at home including ageing at home. For example, this may be about fall detection or wandering detection for dementia sufferers. Or it could be about proof-of-presence and time/attendance records for paid carers.

The “nearest peripheral” location will come in to its own with the home network if you have multiple network-capable TVs or printers on your premises. Here, it could be about having the default printer being the one that is closest to you even if you take your laptop to the kitchen for example. It could also extend to use of Wi-Fi Aware for “across-the-room” use cases like transferring data between devices or user discovery with social media and online games.

Therefore in a lot of use cases, Wi-Fi will be valued as a location and ranging technology even if the network of concern is a small network that covers a house or small business.

DTS Play-Fi Home Theater setup based around a Philips TV

Google, Apple and Amazon implemented “home-theatre” setups for their set-top-box and smart-speaker platforms. That is where their smart speakers and set-top devices work together in order to provide improved TV sound from audio or video content sources hosted on these set-top boxes. But these are focused primarily about improved stereo separation for the video content’s sound.

Similarly, Denon, Yamaha and Sonos have used their own network-based multiroom audio platforms to support multichannel sound across multiple Wi-Fi-based speakers that work on their platforms. This even extends to 5.1 surround sound with the IP-based packet-driven home network as the backbone between the speakers.

These setups have answered issues associated with the IP-based packet-driven small network that can affect proper in-sync in-phase multichannel sound delivery such as latency affecting one or more channels. Here, it’s been about using a single audio device, typically one the receives the stereo or multichannel audio stream from the source, working as the “reference sync device” for the multichannel audio setup and making sure all speakers refer to that device for the time sync information.

The DTS Play-Fi network-based multiroom audio platform has been supported by a significant number of “names of respect” within the hi-fi world. But lately a few TV manufacturers have come on board to extend this platform towards TV and video use cases including wireless network-based surround sound.

Initially this use case, driven by Philips, applied towards “extending” TV audio towards other logical rooms within a DTS Play-Fi setup. But it is now extended towards DTS Play-Fi surround-sound setups which use this technology and your home network as a backbone between the TV and the speakers that are part of a multichannel surround-sound setup.

This is based around a TV working as a “master device” or “anchor device” with the sound delivered to DTS Play-Fi speakers that serve the front left and right, surround or bass channels of the surround-sound setup. The TV’s own speakers would serve as the centre dialogue speakers and this cluster of speakers is set up as a logical room when it comes to streaming audio around your home network.

DTS Play-Fi Home Theater surround sound setup – this time the soundbar is the main audio device

This concept is now extended towards a soundbar serving as a “master device” for these setups, due to the desire to have it work with all TVs rather than those equipped for DTS Play-Fi. In a lot of cases, the soundbar is used as a cost-effective and visually-attractive step towards improving one’s TV sound, with these devices appealing to households that maintain the “TV in the corner” arrangement or prefer a separate stereo system for music.

It is in addition to the “home theatre” application being extended to Dolby Atmos / DTS X setups that implement “height” audio channels. Here, a DTS Play-Fi setup with suitable equipment can be set up to encompass upward-firing speakers or speakers installed up high to create that “sound-above-you” effect but using wireless speakers and your home network.

Again this offers the advantage of wireless surround speakers where you only need power outlets near these speakers to have them work. This still comes in to its own with the open-plan living area with the lounge furniture serving as the room divider – there is very little in the way of cabling to deal with and the surround speakers can be relocated at a moment’s notice.

Similarly, the “sound bar” application could come in to its own with AV receivers where the goal is to move towards a full surround setup but without the ugliness associated with speaker cables run to the back of the room. This is something that some of DTS Play-Fi’s member companies like Onkyo and Pioneer who manufacture AV receivers, could aspire towards especially if they are trying to target some of their products towards the “value” market segment.

Here, some users may use a comprehensive AV receiver for their music playback and home-theatre needs, whether with a stereo amplifier and speakers optimised for music playback handling the front speakers or not. As well, a manufacturer could be offering value-priced AV receivers  that have up to four power amplifiers but support surround sound with DTS Play-Fi speakers.

Lets not forget that Philips could be a brand that pushes DTS Play-Fi towards the territory of affordable equipment and speakers being available from many household names. This could lead to speakers that are priced in a manner similar to IKEA’s SYMFONISK did for the Sonos ecosystem. That is to allow you to build out a network-based multiroom audio system or start a surround-sound setup based on the DTS Play-Fi platform for a reasonable price. It also includes creating one of these setups from scratch using affordable speakers then aspiring to use higher-quality premium speakers in the main living areas of the home while the affordable speakers end up in secondary areas like the bedroom.

The DTS Play-Fi approach to network-based surround sound is demonistrating the use of your home network for full surround sound distribution. As well, this is facilitating the use of a heterogenous setup with speakers from different manufacturers this allowing for the existence of innovative hardware that excels or is affordable for most people.

Article

Could ad-supported video-on-demand be the way to go on our smart TVs and set-top boxes like the Apple TV?

How Australians feel about advertising-supported streaming – AdNews

My Comments

Increasingly we are making use of advertising-supported video-on-demand services when it comes to streaming TV shows.

One form these services come in are “broadcaster video-on-demand” services run by private or public-service TV broadcasters that run advertising. The other form are video-on-demand services that are purely funded by advertising such as YouTube. This will also include the subscription video-on-demand services that are starting to offer ad-supported reduced-price or free-to-use plans in addition to their premium ad-free plans.

The AdNews article had found that Australian TV viewers are accepting ad-supported video-on-demand services. This is due to the user-experience for ad-supported video-on-demand being perceived to be better than the traditional experience associated with advertising-supported linear TV viewing.

This issue may be seen as being different from broadcaster video-on-demand services ran by advertising-funded TV broadcasters. But it may apply to TV broadcasters who offer a premium video-on-demand video service as an adjunct to their broadcast and BVOD offerings, with examples being Stan or Paramount+ ran by the Nine Network and Ten Network respectively.

How will the viewing experience come across for ad-supported services

.. what with Netflix lining up ad-supported low-cost subscription tiers

Here, you have fewer commercials per ad break compared to the traditional TV experience, As well, there is an increased chance of seeing shorter more succinct ads, something that may only have been ran later on in the same ad break as a prior standard-length ad to reinforce that ad’s message.

Some platforms may even allow the user to skip particular ads or may offer some form of interactivity so users can “act on” ads relevant to their needs. An example of this could be to support “telescoping” where you can choose to see a longer-form ad with more details if you are interested in the product or service concerned. Or it could be about being able to use your “companion-screen” device like your smartphone or tablet to act on the offer being advertised such as to book a seat at that movie or play whose trailer you saw.

Add to this the ability for ad-supported video-on-demand platforms to support targeted advertising options. This will be facilitated with the video-on-demand service providers subscribing to one or more adtech platforms or ad marketplaces and having these platforms “fill” at least some of the advertising inventory with campaigns provided by these marketplaces, in addition to the service selling its own advertising inventory directly.

Like with traditional commercial TV, the ad breaks that these advertising-driven video-on-demand services will also be about creating breaks during the viewing experience. This could be a chance to go to the kitchen or bathroom or, where applicable, to put more fuel on the solid-fuel fire. As well, most of us would be looking at our smartphones or tablets during the ad breaks to interact with social media or look for online resources about concepts that are highlighted in the content.

The increased appeal of advertising-driven video-on-demand has come about due to a saturated market for ad-free subscription video-on-demand services. Here, some users are even questioning whether it is worth it to subscribe to multiple subscription-based streaming services at the full price. This is more so if one service’s content appeals to them more than another service.

It will mean that users could sign up to many of these services through ad-supported low-tier plans or benefit from services that adopt a freemium business model where there is a free ad-supported service plan alongside a premium ad-free service plan. This could lead to users subscribing to one or two video-on-demand services that they value the most while watching content on other video-on-demand services that run a ad-based freemium approach.

Impact on video content offered

But there are questions that will come up about the increased acceptance of ad-supported video-on-demand. One of these would be whether this has an impact on the kind of video content offered through these services.

Here, it may be about producers being required to avoid taking risks in order to keep their content “brand safe” so as not to impact advertisers’ reputations. This would necessitate avoiding controversial topics and contexts being part of the content.

Or it could be content producers pandering to the lowest common denominator in order to attract advertisers that offer goods and services that “every man and his dog” wants. This can be more so where an advertising-driven video-on-demand doesn’t create its specific niche market.

Let’s not forget the issue where some service providers will offer a smaller selection of their content to those of us who sign up to the ad-supported service tiers. This may be of concern for those of us who have discerning content tastes, something that has become more prevalent thanks to Netflix and services offering “premium-grade” TV content.

In some cases, you may find that lower-priced ad-supported tiers may offer the content at a basic video and sound quality specification like Full HD or stereo sound. Or there is a limit on the number of devices that can be concurrently used to view different content.

Similarly, there will be questions raised about video-on-demand services who have content directed at children and youth as part of their content lineup. Here, it would be about a requirement to keep the amount of advertising down within this content and maintain a strong control over the goods and services advertised while that content is shown. This is in order for parents and educators to consider these services as being “safe” for children and youth to use.

Conclusion

The increased prevalence of ad-supported video-on-demand services, including subscription-based services offering free or low-cost ad-supported service tiers, will be expected as a way to answer the over-saturated online video marketplace.

Article

Starlink to allow semi-portable use of their satellite terminal

Starlink Internet Will Now Let You Take Your Dishy on the Go (gizmodo.com.au)

My Comments

Starlink is offering the ability to use your Starlink dish terminal and Internet service in a transportable manner around the same continent.

Here, this will be offered as an extra-cost feature to your subscription with costing USD$25 per month. You can enable and disable this feature as required which can come in to its own with those of us who use Starlink when camping or caravanning during the holiday seasons, or when running a temporary remote worksite.

The requirements for Starlink’s portability feature include:

• The device to be used within the same continent as the registered address of service and to be within Starlink’s coverage footprint
• To change the registered address of service if you are away from your current service address for more than two months
• To use the Starlink terminal in a stationary location rather than in a vehicle or craft that is in motion

.. to come in to its own with caravans and boats and similar scenarios

You will expect best-case performance at the location you are temporarily using Starlink at because this low-earth-orbit satellite system is currently engineered to prioritise uses who have registered their Starlink service at that location.

The fact that the Starlink setup is not fully mobile and requires you to have equipment stationary while in use would come in to its own with certain use cases. For example, a recreational-vehicle or boat user who moves around would set up their Starlink setup when they have set up camp or moored their boat and only while they are at that location. Similarly a temporary mobile office would set up their Starlink terminal when they have arrived at where they want to work at.

There doesn’t seem to be any information about permanently installing a Starlink dish terminal in a vehicle, transportable building or boat. This approach may satisfy those of us who regularly take that vehicle, building or vessel to a particular location but want to reduce the number of tasks required to set oneself up at that location.

Another question that will come up regarding the “same continent” rule is whether islands that are located close to the continent but are politically separate from that continent are considered thus, even though they have Starlink service. This may be of concern where the island or islands are separated from the content by a day or overnight trip in a car ferry or, in the case of UK and France, a short train trip through a tunnel.

There is still the intent to offer a fully-portable service where the Starlink satellite Internet service can be used in a moving vehicle or vessel. This may have to be initially offered as an inland / coastal service relative to a continent which may satisfy most use cases like trains and coaches moving across a country or boats that are “under way” in inland or coastal waters.

I suspect that this will come about when Starlink is offered in more areas as an Internet backbone for general public-transport situations like air travel, cruise ships and long-distance trains.

Bluetooth LE Audio

Bluetooth LE Audio and its multicast audio abilities will still have to factor in headphones like the Sony WH-1000XM4 to be considered worthwhile

As covered previously, Bluetooth LE Audio is considered as the next evolution of Bluetooth wireless audio for smartphones, tablets and computers.

It encompasses the LC3 audio codec that is more efficient than the traditional Bluetooth Classic SBC audio codec. This provides for increased power efficiency and battery runtime for portable setups thus leading to the design of very small hearable devices like earbuds or hearing aids, thanks to the ability to use a very small battery. There is also the ability to realise increased sound fidelity for Bluetooth audio links, something as good as at least CD-quality stereo audio.

Add to this reduced latency for Bluetooth-based audio links, which means that this mode of transmission can be seen as relevant for video-game sound or audio sent to multiple endpoint devices.

This codec is not bound to a particular device or chipset manufacturer which means that more devices can be legitimately built with Bluetooth LE Audio support without the need for a particular chipset for example. As well, Android 13 is expected to have this functionality built in to it if your Android phone can be updated to this newer version. I would also expect iOS and other operating systems to have support for Bluetooth LE Audio through an upcoming feature-level update.

Here I am talking about two features being introduced with Bluetooth LE Audio that will increase its market acceptance.

Audio sharing and broadcast audio

A potential killer feature for Bluetooth LE Audio is the ability to broadcast audio content to other devices. This could be in the form of you and a friend listening to the same audio playlist through your own headphones with the ability to have the sound level how you like it as well as hearing it in stereo. Or it could be multiple people hearing a common program source on their devices at their preferred sound levels.

Some of the use cases include providing assisted hearing arrangements in public areas without the need to use an induction-based loop that only works with telecoil-equipped hearing aids or proprietary stereo headsets. Or it could be about the “silent disco” where you can bring your own headsets to participate in the dancing. As well, it is also being seen as a way to, for example, provide audio from a particular TV set installed in a bar or cafe without needing to have a set of speakers associated with the venue’s audio system switched between the background music or the TV audio.

Even at home, it could be about enhanced audio setups for TV viewing where particular viewers could benefit from increased audio volume or access to audio description or dubbed foreign-language soundtracks. This is without impacting on what everyone else wants to benefit from and also facilitates access to stereo or “virtual surround’ sound for the same content.

The preferred Bluetooth LE Audio approach for establishing these setups is to use a control app or physical controller to “point” compatible audio devices to the shared audio content or audio stream. Typically such apps will be required to discover Bluetooth LE Audio broadcast streams and allow users to select their desired audio stream.

Use with legacy Bluetooth devices

This can’t be achieved with the large number of Bluetooth Classic Audio devices that are currently in use. It would be more of concern where there isn’t the possibility of manufacturers providing firmware updates to enable these legacy devices for Bluetooth LE Audio.

An example of this is the “headset wars” taking place between Bose, Sony, B&O and Apple where these manufacturers are outpacing each other with the best-value over-ear noise-cancelling Bluetooth headsets. You may find that the you bought that Bose QuietComfort 35 II or Sony WH-1000XM4 headset but they won’t be compatible with Bluetooth LE Audio unless Bose or Sony offer a firmware update to fully support Bluetooth LE Audio.

Here, you don’t necessarily want to get rid of a set of perfectly good headphones just to benefit from Bluetooth LE Audio and its broadcast features. After I was reading material on the Bluetooth SIG site about this standard, I came across a suggested path for integrating this technology with wired headphones.

This was in the form of a Bluetooth LE Audio controller app or operating-system function which worked as a “sink” device for the audio-sharing / broadcast-audio features and stream what was received to the wired headphones. But this approach would also be about repackaging the incoming selected broadcast audio stream as a Bluetooth Classic (A2DP) audio stream for something like a Bose QuietComfort 35 II or Sony WH-1000XM4 noise-cancelling headset. That is although they reckoned that this approach may not be efficient due to “repackaging” the Bluetooth audio stream but would need to be achieved to allow the use of Bluetooth Classic Audio devices in this context.

This same app may also be required to provide software support for audio sharing especially where the device doesn’t have inherent support for Bluetooth LE Audio. It would be in the form of being a Bluetooth LE Audio source or target for audio-sharing setups.

Bluetooth speakers and car audio

Bluetooth LE Audio apps may also be required to bring Bluetooth LE Audio broadcasts to Bluetooth speakers like this Braven BRV-X outdoor Bluetooth speaker

The COVID-19 coronavirus plague gave drive-in movies a renaissance in some areas. This was because households could go out and watch the movies from the safety of their cars and reduce the spread of the virus. This had been extended to “drive-in” live entertainment like concerts except a stage for the live entertainment was used rather than a screen for showing films.

Even before, there has been some interest in drive-in movies as a form of “cinema al fresco” in countries that had balmy summers. This was about enjoying watching films in a cinematic experience while in an outdoor setting rather than going in to an air-conditioned cinema to watch films as a community.

But these setups would distribute the sound via FM radio so each household can hear the entertainment’s soundtrack through their car’s car radio or a portable radio tuned to a particular FM frequency. This was able to use the many-decades-old FM technology to deliver the sound in stereo to each vehicle. Bluetooth LE Audio could easily be seen as a logical successor to FM radio for this kind of use case.

As for Bluetooth speakers and Bluetooth audio-receive adaptors, these could be part of the Bluetooth LE Audio broadcast-audio concept. For example, Bluetooth SIG often suggested the TV, whether at home, in a hotel room or in a public place as a key use case for the broadcast-audio feature that Bluetooth LE Audio offers. This is in the form of assisted hearing or access to an alternate soundtrack at home, reduced volume for hotel-room TVs or the ability to hear the soundtrack for a show playing on a bar’s TV via headphones.

Here, a Bluetooth speaker could be about a group of people at a particular table in a bar hearing the call of a sports event shown on one of the TVs in that bar through one of these speakers. Or it could be about someone hearing the audio-described soundtrack for a show that everyone is watching through a small Bluetooth speaker while everyone else hears the standard soundtrack through the main sound system.

Firstly this could mean that there could be an incentive to support Bluetooth LE Audio functionality within newer speaker-equipped Bluetooth audio equipment or Bluetooth audio-receive adaptor devices. As for as legacy equipment is concerned, it may be about the previously-mentioned Bluetooth LE Audio controller app that repackages broadcast audio content delivered via this new standard as the legacy Bluetooth Classic Audio standards.

Announcement priority

A feature that will be wanted for Bluetooth LE Audio’s broadcast-audio feature is some form of “announcement priority” feature. Such a feature would be called for in relationship to emergency messaging but would also be desired for the transport sector.

Here, that would be akin to the traffic-announcement priority feature instigated with ARI and implemented primarily with RDS, where, with a suitably-equipped car radio tuned to a broadcaster supporting this feature, you can turn it down or have something else playing but you don’t miss out on the latest road reports. This is due to out-of-band subcarrier-based signalling that causes the radio to increase the volume to a particular level or pause the other program you were listening to while a traffic report is being broadcast.

If this was implemented in Bluetooth LE Audio, it could be set up to allow a transport-service announcement or building emergency announcement to override whatever you are listening to on your phone, but not override a phone call. Such a facility would have to have some form of “relevance filter” with metadata relating to the platform that you are waiting at or the vehicle you are riding on in a public transport system, or the language the announcement comes in. Like with the car-radio application, there would be a requirement to cancel the currently-playing announcement but be ready to hear the next one for further updates.

Multichannel audio

Another killer use case for Bluetooth LE Audio is to allow a single source device to deliver two or more audio streams relating to the same content as a multichannel audio stream to multiple output devices. This is with the sound in phase and in sync across all of the audio channels.

Here, it would be operated in a manner that doesn’t require vendors to reinvent the wheel when it comes to designing multichannel-audio equipment that exploits Bluetooth LE Audio technology.

The obvious use case is to have standards-based true wireless earbuds and hearing aids without manufacturers reinventing the wheel every time they design these setups. As well, the requirement would be to have the source device effectively stream each channel to each output device so that there is no retransmission involved thus assuring power efficiency for earbuds and hearing aids.

Bluetooth speakers

I would see the multichannel audio feature also benefit Bluetooth speakers. Here, a manufacturer could design their Bluetooth speakers so that if you buy two or more of these speakers, you could set up a pair for proper stereo-sound reproduction with increased separation.

There may even be a requirement to support multiple multichannel speaker clusters. This could be multiple pairs of speakers used to reproduce a stereo soundmix in different areas.

Use of subwoofers to pump up the bass

Some device manufacturers would be taking this further by having speaker setups involving speakers that have different frequency-response characteristics. The classic example is a pair of highly-compact speakers reproducing the stereo sound but not having much bass response while another larger speaker with a larger driver and housing like a subwoofer yields the bass notes. Such setups are desired as a way to have compact speakers yet be able to have that bit of bass “kick”.

This would require support within the standard for passing audio frequencies above or below a certain threshold to particular speakers that can handle particular audio frequency ranges. Most likely it may be facilitated through each speaker taking an audio stream that represents the full frequency range and passing it through low-pass or high-pass filter circuitry or its acoustic design doing the filtering.

Surround sound

Then there is the idea of using Bluetooth LE for multi-channel surround sound applications, typically associated with video content. This may be about a soundbar that represents the front and centre channels of a surround soundmix, a subwoofer representing low-frequency effects and two speakers representing the “surround” channels.

Most likely the source device will decode the Dolby or DTS surround-sound formats and allocate particular channels to particular speakers.

Speakers with own audio inputs or sources

There will be problems with this kind of setup where Bluetooth speakers typically have another audio input beyond the Bluetooth audio stream delivered by a smartphone or other device. This represents at least a stereo line-level analogue input with better setups offering one or more wired digital inputs of some form.

It may also extend to where a Bluetooth LE Audio speaker in a multichannel setup has its own programme source. Such sources can range from a traditional radio or TV broadcast source or packaged content medium like vinyl, CD or Blu-Ray. Or it could be file-based media on something like a USB device or simply receiving online audio or video content via the Internet. I would even encompass devices that are part of a network-based multiroom audio setup or smart speakers that have their own microphone and work with a voice-driven home assistant.

The common use case involving speakers and multichannel sound from a connected source would be a soundbar that is connected to a TV set via HDMI-ARC. This soundbar, expected to reproduce the sound from the connected TV, would typically work alongside a subwoofer that reproduces the bass frequencies, while it reproduces the midrange frequencies for the left, right and centre channels in an audio mix. Some setups may support additional front speakers for increased stereo separation or a set of rear speakers for full-on surround sound. Or it could be about extra speakers required to properly reproduce a Dolby Atmos soundmix.

Here, it will be about wanting to have one speaker that has the input or content source work as a Bluetooth LE Audio source device for these setups. This speaker will then be required to yield a multichannel Bluetooth LE audio stream to the other speakers as if it is a Bluetooth audio-transmitter adaptor. The other speakers would then pick up and reproduce the audio channel that they are assigned to.

This use case involving a Bluetooth speaker of some sort having its own audio input or source and working with a multichannel audio setup would be seen as the exception when it comes to having a Bluetooth source device stream each channel of a multichannel soundmix to different output devices.

In this case, it would be about streaming a stereo or multichannel Bluetooth LE audio stream from the connected or integrated audio source around multiple Bluetooth LE speakers. You would then have to set each speaker to receive the appropriate audio channel, most likely through the manufacturer’s app.

Conclusion

The broadcast audio and audio-sharing abilities of Bluetooth LE Audio will most likely appear in the form of mobile-platform “controller” apps that discover Bluetooth LE Audio broadcast / multicast streams and share them with audio devices associated with the mobile device. Here, there will be a reliance on these apps to “bridge” Bluetooth LE Audio multicast streams to the Bluetooth Classic Audio devices currently in circulation.

Most likely I would see the Bluetooth LE Audio multichannel support manifest in manufacturers who encourage us to buy two or more of a particular speaker product and set them up for stereo sound. As well, it could encourage in the short  term the supply of subwoofers and three-piece speaker kits that implement this technology to give that bit of extra bass kick.