Auracast Pushes Venue Audio Onto A Broadcast Model

A feature of Bluetooth LE Audio is quietly changing how installed venues deliver audio to people. Auracast is a broadcast capability built on the LE Audio specification: one transmitter, in the shape of a phone, television, display or public address system, sends a synchronised audio stream to an unlimited number of nearby receivers such as earbuds, headphones and hearing aids. It is not a new version of Bluetooth pairing. The audio source can be somewhere else entirely, several people can join the same stream, and the transmission can be open or protected with a password or QR code. The LC3 codec keeps power consumption low enough for hearing instruments while delivering better intelligibility than the older Bluetooth audio profiles.

The deployments are no longer theoretical. Vue Cinemas has brought Auracast to more than two hundred screens using Auri assistive listening equipment, giving patrons a path toward bringing their own compatible headphones instead of borrowing a venue receiver and hoping it is charged. Frankfurt Airport is trialling Auracast at two gates in Terminal 1 so that boarding announcements can be heard directly on personal devices. In the United Kingdom, Bristol Temple Meads is running a four platform trial through November while Brighton begins a year long pilot. Smaller proof points exist too, including a performing arts centre in Sheridan, Wyoming and Stadium Taranaki in New Zealand, where multiple transmitters cover different parts of the venue without the underfloor cabling a conventional induction loop requires.

For venues the appeal is operational as much as technical. Assistive listening obligations in assembly areas traditionally mean buying, charging, storing, sanitising and replacing a fleet of receivers, and the equipment that is most needed is often the equipment that is hardest to keep ready. A broadcast model shifts part of that load onto devices people already carry, while still allowing venue supplied receivers for visitors who arrive without compatible hardware, which remains necessary under accessibility rules in many markets. The same infrastructure can serve silent screens in gyms and waiting rooms, multilingual interpretation at conferences, and audio description in theatres. The catch is device support: owning a handset with Bluetooth 5.2 or newer does not automatically mean it can receive Auracast, and the Bluetooth SIG expects around eight in ten new devices, roughly seven billion units, to support it by 2028.

Installed audio has to be delivered to those transmitters as reliably as any other signal. Amtune supplies the pieces that feed a venue audio and video chain, including Dante and AES67 networked audio modules, modular Dante audio interfaces and AES67 audio modules for distributing audio over the network, AV-over-IP codecs and decoders that carry display audio alongside video, AV converters for mixed legacy sources, and HiFi DAC preamplifiers for critical listening positions. Products are manufactured under an ISO 9001 quality system and tested to CE, FCC and RoHS standards. Project teams can request design support at sales@amtune.com.