Auracast™ Broadcast Audio is the latest Bluetooth® capability. It allows you to connect your hearing aids directly to the sound around you, whether you’re in a theatre or cinema, train station, airport, lecture hall, or simply watching TV at home.
What makes Auracast™ new?
If you’re a hearing aid user, you may be familiar with telecoils and hearing loops, which can help you hear in public places like churches and theatres.
Hearing loops are wired installations that transmit sound directly into hearing aids via magnetic signals. These signals are picked up by a small copper coil, called a telecoil, embedded in the hearing aid and which can be switched on or off.
Hearing loops can broadcast sound to multiple users at once, but come with limitations: sound quality and interference, complex installation and limited flexibility.
It’s also worth remembering that hearing loops are analogue, and while they work well, they lack many benefits of digital technology such as sound quality, stereo sound, and multiple channels.
Auracast™ offers similar accessibility to hearing loops but with some major advantages.
Unlike hearing loops, Auracast™ doesn’t require wiring an entire room, instead it simply utilises a transmitter. This makes it easier to install.
Auracast™ allows audio to be broadcast via Bluetooth® and accessed by a variety of compatible devices, including hearing aids, smartphones and headphones.
Our latest hearing aids are either Auracast™ ready or Auracast™ compatible.
How does Auracast™ work?
Auracast™ transmitters can be built into devices such as TVs or smartphones, or installed in public places like theatres, public transport hubs or offices, allowing multiple users to receive clearer, more direct sound.
If you’re in range of the broadcast, you can find the audio stream on your smartphone, connect your hearing aids or headphones to the stream and listen to the broadcast.
Unlike current Bluetooth technology, Auracast™ doesn’t require a ‘pairing’ process.
Bluetooth® in the past only allowed for a one-to-one connection between a broadcasting device, like a smartphone, and a receiving device, like headphones or hearing aids. Auracast™ transmits to dozens of receivers.
And Auracast™ can be accessed by any Bluetooth-enabled device, not just hearing aids or venue-owned headsets. This means that hearing aid users can benefit, but so can anyone with earbuds and a smartphone.
This additional accessibility could help the growth of Auracast™ which can’t be deployed in isolation – it needs transmitters and compatible devices in order to be more widely adopted and to thrive in the future.
Where will we see Auracast™ in the future?
We expect that Auracast™ will be used in:
- Theatres – for live performances and in cinemas
- Conference and meeting rooms, lecture halls and classrooms – to hear public speakers
- Airports, train stations and public transport hubs – to hear important announcements
- Gyms and restaurants – to hear TVs
- Tourist attractions – to hear tour guides
Where can you experience Auracast™ in action?
Auracast™ is now being employed at Brighton railway station and Bristol Temple Meads station.
You can watch this ITV News clip of Brighton railway station becoming the first station in the country to use Auracast™ technology.
Vue Cinemas have also installed Auracast™ technology in 18 selected cinemas (over 200 screens) nationwide. You can experience Auracast™ at:
Vue Barrow
Vue Bristol Cribbs
Vue Castleford
Vue Cheshire Oaks
Vue Colchester
Vue Dublin
Vue Eastleigh
Vue Edinburgh Omni
Vue Glasgow Fort
Vue Harrow
Vue Islington
Vue Leeds Kirkstall
Vue Norwich
Vue Plymouth
Vue Portsmouth
Vue Sheffield
Vue Southport
Vue Stratford
It could take some time before Auracast™ technology is widely adopted, but you can keep an eye out for signs saying that it’s available.
