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> Codec: SBC & AAC No LC3? No LE Audio? So, still HFP/SBC telephony with crappy microphone quality and in mono? For that price, in 2024?
by summm 2y ago
> Codec: SBC & AAC
No LC3? No LE Audio? So, still HFP/SBC telephony with crappy microphone quality and in mono? For that price, in 2024?
- blackbeans 2y agoIt's their first iteration and I applaud their effort. It takes at least a year to develop something like this and the sales quantities will be lower compared to the big brands, so the price is understandable. You seem to belong to group of consumers that wants to compromise lifespan and sustainability in favor of features and price. That's fine, but it simply means you are not their target audience for this product.
- abdullahkhalids 2y agoIsn't more advanced codecs just software? The hardware support should be there, given its bluetooth 5.3. Is it just a case of them not licensing the advanced codecs?
- petsfed 2y agoThink about the device that is performing the decoding. At its core, It's an ultra-low-power microcontroller, and the low-power requirements to hit the battery life specification while maintaining audio quality may or may not allow the kind of software abstractions that make these codecs "just software". Once you've licensed the codec, you then have to implement it on the micro's architecture, in a way that's actually performant. Which in turn may or may not require actual Assembly work.
- abdullahkhalids 2y agoThanks for explaining.
- rale00 2y agoYou wouldn't be implementing anything in software. The hardware would have decoding built in, so it's really just a question of choosing a bluetooth audio soc with the codecs you want and paying the licensing fees.
- petsfed 2y agoI didn't know that codec handling was done at the hardware level. Interesting. So the underlying idea of my post ("you can't just add new codecs in software") is ultimately correct, but for reasons completely unrelated to what I mentioned. That is, I'm wrong, but sort of stumbled into the right answer. Doubly interesting. Now I have a ton of questions about how bluetooth audio is produced on the phone side, so that headphones only have to decode one (or a few) codec on the other side.
- summm 2y agoIt is their second wireless earbud model. The first was non-repairable. And a current feature set would be especially important if the product should be used for a prolonged time. No need to be snarky. I just don't want to buy that stuff now and throw it away 2 years later when the next iteration comes out.
- ipsum2 2y agoAirpods Pro v2 was released in 2022/2023 also uses AAC.
- hollandheese 2y agoAAC is a perfectly fine audio codec.
- summm 2y agoPlease read my full comment. First, AAC is not even used for duplex audio such as in telephony. For that, the Bluetooth standard downgrades to SBC mono 16khz at best. Additionally, AAC is high-latency, even it is used. So it is not "perfectly fine" at all.
- hollandheese 2y agoAAC is perfectly fine for listening to music transparently, and watching video. And no one cares enough about the duplex audio stuff for it to matter. Phone and Zoom calls sound decent enough with pretty much all bluetooth devices now. If you care about that you'll be using a real microphone anyway and can have the headphones not in duplex mode.