3 ms·

Opus decoding in earbuds is totally doable. I've been working on an Opus mode for Bluetooth A2DP, it is a bit of work getting two implementations going, but I d

Opus decoding in earbuds is totally doable. I've been working on an Opus mode for Bluetooth A2DP, it is a bit of work getting two implementations going, but I don't think Opus on earbuds is any more unreasonable than AAC. One big benefit to Opus on Bluetooth devices is that a lot of content, particularly Spotify, YouTube, and Netflix, is already in Opus; so presumably if one application is playing then it should be possible to just proxy the frames right over the wire without reencoding; switching to decoding and mixing when system sounds play is also pretty straightforward in that case. AptX HD is probably the most reasonable Bluetooth codec deployed right now, but it is proprietary to Qualcomm. LDAC is by far the silliest codec, it is very Sony, and designed for audiophools, but at least it's free and deployed on every Android device.

neltnerb 6y ago
As a point of reference, I'm designing some ear buds that have pretty big batteries (~300mAh Li-Ion) and at that power budget the idle current for the battery power controller chip is sufficient to drain the battery in about a month (or several hours of active use). I don't know if that's good enough to satisfy someone who purchases them, but it is what it is... I think you're probably right about active current consumption though, especially if you're using a modern MCU.