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Pine64 has just started taking orders for the PineBuds Pro ANC (Active Noise Cancellation) & TWS (True Wireless Sound) earbuds based on the Bestechnic BES2300-YP dual-core Arm Cortex-M4F Bluetooth audio microcontroller found in the PineSound development board.
There are plenty of TWS earbuds on the market, but the PineBuds Pro earbuds are hackable thanks to an open-source firmware that could pave the way to interesting features, and potentially the development of open-source firmware transforming the earbuds into hearing aids.
PineBuds Pro specifications:
The earbuds ship with a charging case, ear tips, and a USB-A to USB-C charging cable. The “Little Whale” firmware source code for the PineBud Pro has been released in a zip file in the wiki, where you’ll also find schematics for the earbuds and the charging case, and datasheets for the components including the one for the Bestechnic BES 2300YP microcontroller. Hopefully, they’ll soon share the code in a public repository (as opposed to a zip file) so that code can be worked on more easily…
Just like other products first launched by Pine64, the Pinebuds Pro are geared towards developers at this time, and accompanied with some warnings:
The warranty is also limited to 30 days since it’s basically sold at cost, or close to it. If you’re good with all this, you can order the PineBuds Pro for $69.99 on the Pine64 store.
Jean-Luc started CNX Software in 2010 as a part-time endeavor, before quitting his job as a software engineering manager, and starting to write daily news, and reviews full time later in 2011.
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$70 is not “at cost”. Many similar earphones sell in retail for half of that.
Many earphones are cheaply made, off the shelf, made in bulk, copies of copies, with little to no QC, selling under tens of (impossible to pronounce) brands.
Given the openness of the manufacturer, IMHO the price is pretty much right. Let’s just see how they will perform sonically.
I picked up a pair of very decent earbuds from a known-ish brand, although this was their first earbuds, for $35 and they’re not cheaply made, nor have I managed to find a different brand selling the same earbuds. They are actively updating their software and have added a few improvements over the few months I’ve owned them. They claim to use a single balanced armature and a regular dynamic driver in them, but this is obviously not something I can verify. Admittedly it was a sale price and they normally go for $50, but they’re still way cheaper than… Read more »
What openness?
I don’t know. Sounds reasonable to me. Decent headphones are more complex to produce. Higher quality material, low volume. I would try them first to actually judge.
I own Sony NC. So, good headphones are really worth it. Especially to support a cool project.
It’s not for you.
At $70 is not worth it IMHO. I recently bought around 20 pairs of TWS earbuds from different brands within $50 and $400 price range, from generic chifi to high-end ones from brand audio names and guess what: You get what you pay for in TWS earbuds, I found the minimum you should spend is $100 for decent, entry level audio quality. Noticed PineBuds Pro do not even support LDAC and Aptx-HD Hi-Res codecs, only SBC and ACC. Also, only 5 hours of playtime before using charging station is too little. They should’ve made at least something like Edifier Neobuds… Read more »
I am extremely disappointed that there are no hopes for just a bare development board, as this chip could be a perfect “poor’s man RT685” with Bluetooth Dual, no less.
FYI the firmware is “open source” in the same way that raspberry pi is “open source” (and that is being generous), ie there is some source code which links to a bunch of binary blobs where the most interesting stuff is. That’s probably why it isn’t hosted on github.
Just like other products first launched by Pine64, the Pinebuds Pro are geared towards developers at this time
You mean just like every Pine64 product ever. They don’t seem to want to ever ship anything that is finished. They discontinue it before that can happen.
The serial ports accessible over usb is a nice addition for tinkerers. Would be interesting to see what kind of dsp craziness people can come up with.
Qualcomm chips have had their SDK leaked for ages but not much can be done with those TWS sets, since they can’t be flashed and are all closed hardware.
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Note that any programming tips and code writing requires some knowledge of computer programming. Please, be careful if you do not know what you are doing…