Hi All!
Sorry to jump on such an old thread but it seems to be the most active discussion of Feasycom modules on the net!
I am developing a pair of ANC headphones and am particularly interested in using Qualcomm chips as they seem to be the industry leaders. Unfortunately, all their ANC features are commercially tied down.
Has anyone had any luck writing firmware for ANC on Feasycom's modules such as the BT1026E or their newest BT1057? How involved a process is it? I'm more a PCB and design engineer so don't have huge masses of coding knowledge beyond C++ & Arduino.
Thanks for any help or advice to get me going in the right direction!
Sorry to jump on such an old thread but it seems to be the most active discussion of Feasycom modules on the net!
I am developing a pair of ANC headphones and am particularly interested in using Qualcomm chips as they seem to be the industry leaders. Unfortunately, all their ANC features are commercially tied down.
Has anyone had any luck writing firmware for ANC on Feasycom's modules such as the BT1026E or their newest BT1057? How involved a process is it? I'm more a PCB and design engineer so don't have huge masses of coding knowledge beyond C++ & Arduino.
Thanks for any help or advice to get me going in the right direction!
@JCRAcoustics As far as I understand ANC feature is licensed and it's not just a matter of knowing how to program Qualcomm's chips (which is a whole separate problem in itself), you specifically need to have bought a license to use the ANC feature. So unless the module you are using has already paid for this license and includes the ANC firmware when you buy it (unlikely), I wouldn't be too optimistic. It's possible Qualcomm might have a sample license for trying out ANC, but I have never heard anything about it.
@mahaju thanks for the prompt reply! I'm starting to arrive at the same conclusion. Feasycom said they can potentially write firmware for it themselves but I'm waiting to see what price that would be.
I've seen a few analog alternatives for ANC such as the AS3435 but as far as I can make out they're not as effective and only use one mic so I'm thinking it might be a feature I'll have to forgo in this design
I've seen a few analog alternatives for ANC such as the AS3435 but as far as I can make out they're not as effective and only use one mic so I'm thinking it might be a feature I'll have to forgo in this design
Isn't really good. AS3460 is better, but it's going to be obsolete soon. Also it's impossible to get software tool for configuring it. I wanted to use MAX98050, it seems to be fairly usable and relatively cheap.
As for QCC51XX SoCs, ANC needs license, but afaik the default one is good for default address range (00025B00FF00-0F), so if you don't care that much about address, it could be used.
Tbh, BT1057 should be already marked obsolete. Use BTM581, it's LE Audio capabilities are much better and it also supports USB dongle. PM me if interested, I'd like to make great ANC QCC5181 headphones, but not really good at routing PCBs (the component choice is hell).
@o11111 that's interesting. Yeh, I couldn't find much data on the AS3460 and they're largely sold out. The MAX98050 seems like an interesting option but again I can't see stock for it. What did you mean by the address range for the QCC51XX line? If it's possible to activate ANC on it and use it with iPhone/Android/PC in a stereo headphone configuration that's essentially all I need. I'm certainly interested in collaborating in some way. I have experience routing PCBs commercially and for DIY projects but little to no experience working on the firmware side for these kind of chips.
The licenses are based on Bluetooth MAC addresses range, so we'll be limited to range 00025B00FF00..00025B00FF0F
That's probably fine, aptX Adaptive has the same limitations.
It should be, though I won't recommend to use iOS and non-Qualcomm Android devices.
That's basically the opposite for me, so that's win-win situation for both of us (and others who will build a copy of this project).
Actually, I bought like 6 of them about a year ago on Mouser, but you can probably request few samples from manufacturer. I'm not sure tho if it will give better ANC than QCC517x/8x one, but we may try.
Okay so just to dumb this down further for me, if we go the route of using a Qualcomm chip without the licenses then we can use ANC but only with certain devices? For instance would I be able to use my iPhone with the device? I note my Bluetooth address doesn't seem to be within this range. I'd rather have headphones that work across all devices so perhaps the MAX98050 offers a better solution if it doesn't require licenses to use ANC? I will enquire with some manufacturers to get some samples. Currently based out in Vietnam so hopefully that doesn't cause any issues.
I'm currently commencing work on the headphone design so that will largely dictate the constraints of the physical PCB for me.
That doesn't matter. Headset itself needs to have address in this range, not phone. We'd better continue this discussion in private messages as it's not very on-topic.
I have a CSR USB-SPI programmer and a few modules with QCC3003 on the way to me from China (specifically the RRD-303 modules) to use in some speaker projects that I'm working on.
I'm also working on a project that needs a Bluetooth audio transmitter. Originally I was planning on using the kcx_bt_emitter v1.7 module with chipset from Jieli, but I didn't really like the way that it operated.
So I started thinking, perhaps I could program a RRD-303 module to act as a transmitter instead of a receiver. Is that possible?
I have done a lot of searching but haven't been able to figure it out.
I'm also working on a project that needs a Bluetooth audio transmitter. Originally I was planning on using the kcx_bt_emitter v1.7 module with chipset from Jieli, but I didn't really like the way that it operated.
So I started thinking, perhaps I could program a RRD-303 module to act as a transmitter instead of a receiver. Is that possible?
I have done a lot of searching but haven't been able to figure it out.
Is obsolete (well, Qualcomm says "Not for new designs"). Go for QCC5151 or QCC5181 (or their QCC30x6 counterparts if no DSP programming is needed, that is, you don't want LDAC, LC3Plus etc).
Thanks. Yeah, I know that it's old, but it should be more than good enough for my needs. Plus the RRD-303 modules that I bought only cost me US$4.3 shipped, versus more than $27 for a module with QCC5151. That is quite a significant difference and I can't justify the higher cost of the QCC5151 for what I'm building.
QCC3056 is cheaper. esp32 (3$) and rpi zero w (10$) can also do what you want.
You can find firmware for QCC300x in the first post, afaik it can't work as transmitter and that's it. Unless you will write your own firmware, it simply cannot do that.
Thanks that had a more doable price. I'll look into that chip.
I suspected as much, but felt that I needed to ask before I started looking into buying another module for that.
Interesting about the custom firmware part. I think that I'll try that route first before I buy some other module.
Thank you for your replies.
Do you mean get song name and print it on LCD or oled?
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hey o11111, are you and @JRCAcoustics still working on the ANC stuff? I wanted to develop a BT headphone with ANC and my first iteration was a design based around BTM344 and some cheap 40mm drivers and two I2S-connected MEMS microphones, only to then notice that the tricky bit would be the firmware. The Audio worked fine with default firmware in my initial design but I was struggling to understand how to get started on modifying the firmware to support ANC. I then pivoted to looking at AS3435 but now starting to think this may not be a great approach either because the chip needs analog filters, so tuning and optimising these is a bit annoying, not very flexible, and they take up lots of PCB space. Also their support is unresponsive and the chip seems old..
I would be curious about your experience with the MAX98050 and also curious whether you had any luck with firmware modifications in terms of ANC.
If you and JRCAcoustics are still working on this I would be keen to join in.