Bluetooth and Audio: a Great Combination

Two categories that I get excited about are Bluetooth and audio. When you combine the two in a development kit, well, it doesn't get much better than that. Microchip recently released such a kit with the goal of simplifying design for Bluetooth-enabled smartphone docks and speakers.

Designed around the company's 32-bit family of MCUs, the PIC32 Bluetooth Audio Development Kit conforms to the Bluetooth Special Interest Group (SIG) Advanced Audio Distribution Profile (A2DP). The goal of the profile is to enable wireless stereo audio. Hence, consumers can use their phones as music sources or as remote controls to select music files.

The kit includes audio streaming demo code. It delivers up to 24-bit, 192-kHz audio. Microchip claims that it's been tested with more than 100 different Bluetooth audio-enabled devices, spanning 18 different manufacturers. The Bluetooth hardware module and A2DP audio software are already Bluetooth.org certified, which saves time and development cost.

The modular design lets developers swap out the included daughter boards (one for audio and one for Bluetooth), to create their own custom versions with their preferred audio and wireless solutions. The kit also supports USB Host and Device connectivity, Apple device authentication module interface, a 2-inch color LCD, five general-purpose button switches, and five LEDs.

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