The Raspberry Pi's New Jam

Bluetooth LE Audio has already been around for a few years at this point, but few people are actually taking advantage of it yet. Any device that supports version 5.2 or later of the Bluetooth Core Specification is able to use LE Audio to wirelessly transmit audio at higher quality levels, and using less data, than those with older Bluetooth radios. LE Audio also improves energy efficiency, which is crucial for portable electronics, and unlocks some cool new features, like broadcasting a single audio stream to multiple devices.

R&D engineer Ammar Khallouf over at AK-Experiments recently spent some time experimenting with LE Audio to show us how we can take advantage of its features. Khallouf decided to run the tests on every hobbyist’s favorite single-board computer, the Raspberry Pi 5. But there was one major flaw with that plan — the Pi 5 only supports Bluetooth 5.0, which is not compatible with LE Audio.

Since the Pi 5 is exactly the type of hardware that might be used for an audio streaming project, Khallouf stuck with that choice anyway. With the extensibility of this little computer, there was no problem plugging an inexpensive Intel AX210 module into it to provide Bluetooth 5.2 support. Installation was a simple process of downloading the drivers and copying them to the proper system paths.

That only left the job of setting up LE Audio. Fortunately, it is well supported in Linux by commonly used tools. Khallouf installed BlueZ, PipeWire, and WirePlumber, then after a small amount of configuration work, LE Audio was successfully streaming to a Bluetooth headset.

Pairing LE Audio with a Pi would be a great way to support streaming audio projects around the home. The enhanced quality and ability to broadcast to multiple devices would make it ideal for playing synchronized music throughout an entire house, for instance. If you have any ideas for using this technology, be sure to let us know!