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Show HN: Pico-ASHA – Audio streaming to hearing aids using a RPi Pico W

3 pointsby shermp8 months ago
The past several months, I have been developing a method of streaming audio to my hearing aids from a PC. To do this, I have programmed a Pi Pico W to act as a USB audio device which will work with any OS and be capable of playing audio on my hearing aids.<p>For a bit of background, modern hearing aids have different methods of directly streaming audio over bluetooth. The earliest (and most common) is Apple&#x27;s Made for iPhone program. Phonak hearing aids use bluetooth classic (A2DP). Many devices support Android&#x27;s Audio Streaming for Hearing Aids (ASHA). And the latest hearing aids are beginning to support the new LE Audio standard.<p>The goal of Pico-ASHA is to implement Android&#x27;s ASHA. Android has published a specification at <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;source.android.com&#x2F;docs&#x2F;core&#x2F;connect&#x2F;bluetooth&#x2F;asha" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;source.android.com&#x2F;docs&#x2F;core&#x2F;connect&#x2F;bluetooth&#x2F;asha</a>. The reference implementation is in the AOSP project.<p>Pico-ASHA presents itself as USB headset (and a CDC serial device) to the OS. Apart from the Pico W, no additional hardware is required. Pairing to hearing aids is automatic, and once paired, audio streaming Just Works (tm) - in theory! The project is implemented using the Pico C&#x2F;C++ SDK, including TinyUSB for the USB audio&#x2F;CDC support, and btstack for the Bluetooth LE stack.<p>I have now reached the stage of the project where it (mostly) works well with my own hearing aids (Oticon More 2). I would like to expand testing to other hearing aid makes and models, because I have probably made assumptions that work with my hearing aids, but not others. If anybody with suitable hearing aids who have (or can obtain) a Pico W and are willing to be an early tester, it would be much appreciated. I would hate for this to be an Oticon More only project.<p>The motivation for working on this is pretty simple - the adapters hearing aid manufactures provide for interfacing with computers are outrageously priced. I object to paying them hundreds of dollars for commodity hardware. Also, it&#x27;s been a great challenge.<p>This is my first ever attempt at developing on a microcontroller, on USB device support, and bluetooth. So please forgive the state of the codebase, I was learning how to do stuff as I went along.<p>Finally, I would like to acknowledge the recent work occurring in the Linux space to add experimental ASHA support to BlueZ (<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;github.com&#x2F;bluez&#x2F;bluez&#x2F;pull&#x2F;836">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;github.com&#x2F;bluez&#x2F;bluez&#x2F;pull&#x2F;836</a>) and a pipewire implementation (<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;github.com&#x2F;thewierdnut&#x2F;asha_pipewire_sink">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;github.com&#x2F;thewierdnut&#x2F;asha_pipewire_sink</a>). Both projects reignited my enthusiasm to continue work on Pico-ASHA.

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