BlueZ-powered Auracast broadcasting on Genio 700

https://www.collabora.com/news-and-blog/blog/2026/05/05/bluez-powered-auracast-broadcasting-on-genio-700/

by losgehts • 3 months ago

9 1 3 months ago

retrac• 3 months ago

Very interesting. My new hearing aids support Auracast and there's a complete dearth of transmitting equipment.

I remain unconvinced about Auracast. This kind of short-range broadcast is what analog baseband radio (induction loop) still excels at. (The properties of baseband tends to mimic how sound itself travels, including overlapping transmissions and fading with distance and blocked by walls.)

Auracast feels a bit like a compelled "improvement" for patent portfolio purposes. Though at the rate deployment is going, by the time it's widely deployed I guess the patents will have been expired.

In some ways there has been a significant step backwards for accessibility with tech progress. Traditional speakers function as inductive loop transmitters. Anything with a traditional coil speaker I can just put my head near it and switch my hearing aid to T-mode and I get a direct signal from the electronics with no speaker/microphone intervening.

Piezoelectric speakers (like in a cheap smartphone or TV unit) do not have this property. No coil.

BlueZ-powered Auracast broadcasting on Genio 700

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