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> This feature offers major power savings on embedded devices where a USB audio stream can continue to flow while the rest of the system is sleeping, something
by londons_explore 1y ago
> This feature offers major power savings on embedded devices where a USB audio stream can continue to flow while the rest of the system is sleeping, something that devices running on battery power really care about.
How many shipping devices use USB for audio? I was under the impression that most phones/tablets/laptops support usb audio, but it is a niche/power user feature, and not the way the main device speakers are connected.
Do these same systems have bluetooth audio offload so the system can sleep for multiple minutes while a song is playing via bluetooth? (which seems to be a far more common usecase)
- jauntywundrkind 1y agoI admit to mystification myself at the work out in here for what feels like a pretty rare use case! With 3.5mm stereo jacks gone, I do think there are some folks who use USB audio a lot now! But it also feels like it's gotta be a pretty small crowd! This sure feels like a long long way to go to give these select few a battery life boost! It'd be interesting to know how big the impact is, to at least weigh this long effort. Like you, would love to know if there's anything cute folks have done for offloading Bluetooth! my gut says there are vastly vastly vastly more Bluetooth users.
- tecleandor 1y agoUSB-C headphones for phones have their own audio interfaces, yep. Headsets and webcams have usb audio interfaces too. Also, I guess there are a good bunch of devices that have audio interfaces that, internally, might be connected to the USB bus. But I'm also thinking about sound "processing" oriented hardware that could run Linux. Sound recorders, mixers, synths, smart speakers... that could be based on an SBC or an ARM or similar processor.