Pico-ASHA: USB audio to ASHA adapter - Early testers wanted

Hearing Aids
1

Hi everyone!

Over the past few months in my spare time, I have been developing a USB audio to ASHA adapter using a Raspberry Pi Pico W microcontroller. I have gotten to the point where I can reliably stream audio to my Oticon More’s, and I am now looking for any volunteers who might be willing to help test with other brands.

First a warning: the project is still very much a work in progress, expect plenty of warts. I have yet to figure out what the final user experience will be. Also, there’s no guarantee that it will ever work with your particular hearing devices. Starkey Arc AI devices are known to not work at this time.

If you are interested in being a tester, here are the requirements:

  • Obtain a Raspberry Pi Pico W (or WH) microcontroller. These are low cost ($6 USD) and widely available.
  • Have (or obtain) a Micro USB cable to plug the pico into a computer (Linux and Windows 11 tested).
  • Have a Github account to download the software if you don’t want to compile it.
  • Be comfortable with the idea of connecting to a USB serial port.
  • Be prepared for disappointment when it doesn’t work immediately (or ever in the worst case scenario).

If you’re still interested, head on over to the Pico-ASHA Github repository to get started. The readme has instructions on how to get started. Feel free to open an issue if you want to provide feetback, or need help.

8 Likes
2

Thanks! I might check this out, though I think my Starkey HA are a generation too early for ASHA. I have a pair of Oticons, also from a couple of years ago.

I’m not 100% sure, but I don’t think you need a GitHub account to download code from there.

Where else have you mentioned this? Hacker News and Reddit might be good places. Reddit has a hearing aids sub.

So, big picture is that the programmed Pico W appears as a USB PC sound card (for the audio source) with an optional TTL UART debug output?

3

Yeah, the only binaries I’m providing at the moment are from Github actions, which require an account to download actions. I’m thinking of creating a “latest” release or something to sidestep this.

Haven’t really mentioned anywhere else yet. I too was thinking Reddit & Hacker News.

Pico-ASHA presents itself as a composite USB device: A USB sound card, and CDC (serial) device. The UART output is strictly optional (and I think I broke it in the recent USB serial refactors). The goal is to not require any extra tools or hardware.

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In fact, I’ve just removed mentioning UART on the readme for now so there is no confusion.

5

You might find this interesting:

The webinar is available for other time zones and countries as well.

6

This is about the new LE Audio, which is not relevant to Pico-ASHA. If my hearing aids supported LE Audio, I probably wouldn’t have even started Pico-ASHA.

7

@sherman I have Signia 5Ax HA and would like stream audio from Win11 laptop.
I have Pico2 W board and copied pico-asha uf2 file while in Boot mode (I took the uf2 file from Actions built under PicoBt Branch #147), it didnt automatically restart and tried to disconnect and reconnect but nothing happened seems like firmware didnt load. Am I missing anything here?
However, I tried other uf2 available online to make sure board is fine and they worked as expected. Any help is very much appreciated. Thanks

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@sherman I forked your code and made changes to compile using Pico SDK 2.1 for Pico2-W board. Now I am able to stream from Windows11 to Signia 5AX HA but unfortunately connection doesnt last longer than 10mins; gets disconnected and have to unplug & plug again for another 10mins of streaming.