Bluetooth LE Audio

The future of wireless audio

Bluetooth is by far the most recognized wireless standard for audio streaming, with an estimated 1.1 billion devices shipped in 2020. LE Audio and Auracast™ are expected to boost this number, with earbuds as the main contributor.

LE Audio is the next generation of Bluetooth Audio, making audio streaming over Bluetooth Low Energy possible. It enables new use cases and significantly reduces power consumption compared to Classic (BR/EDR) Audio.

Bluetooth LE Audio is developed to enhance performance in power consumption, latency, and bandwidth. LE Audio and Classic Audio standards will continue to coexist and have features that will be supported by both. LE Audio will have a wider set of features, lower power consumption, and better perceived audio quality.

Enabling new audio applications
We ship more than 1 million Bluetooth LE System-On-Chips (SoCs) every day and are the Bluetooth LE market leader. As soon as the required specifications are adopted, we will offer complete solutions for building LE Audio products. Our nRF5340 is a powerful dual-core SoC designed to meet all requirements of LE Audio. If you are planning to build a LE Audio product or have questions, do not hesitate to contact us.

Software is important

Great hardware deserves great software. The nRF Connect SDK offers Audio LE integration and examples to get you going on your audio project.

nRF Connect SDK contains an nRF5340 sample that shows you how to use the DK as a LE Audio USB Dongle, a TWS Earbud, a headphone, and a broadcast receiver. The LE Audio Profiles and Bluetooth Host are available in Zephyr. License agreements are available enabling you to use the LC3 codec. We also provide a Bluetooth LE controller that runs on the nRF5340's network core and handles the Bluetooth LE communication.

You will find many useful features in our nRF Connect SDK helping you develop great LE Audio products.

The Highlights are:
  • Bluetooth controller supporting isochronous channels
  • LC3 Codec library
  • Integrated LE Audio Profiles
  • Truly wireless stereo (TWS) solution
  • Sample application
    • LE Audio USB Dongle
    • Headset
    • Broadcast receiver
    • TWS Earbud

Software Development Kit

nRF Connect SDK

nRF Connect SDK is a common software development kit for cellular IoT, Bluetooth Low Energy, Bluetooth mesh, Matter, Thread and Zigbee. It supports the nRF9160 SiP, the nRF5340 SoC and all nRF52 Series SoCs.

 
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Microcontroller Development Kit

nRF MDK

Register header files and startup code to get you started developing with nRF51, nRF52, nRF53 and nRF91 Series devices in 3rd-party IDEs.

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