New products from Williams Sound and LG join the list of Auracast-enabled devices.
By Stephen O. Frazier
The word “hearables” has entered the hearing care lexicon, particularly for people with hearing loss, denoting a new category of intelligent, multifunctional devices worn in the ears, according to Blake Cadwell of Soundly.com.
This term appears to encompass the vast array of new products leveraging Bluetooth Auracast audio broadcast technology to transmit and receive sound to our ears.
As readers of this blog will recall, Auracast is a Bluetooth LE Audio feature that allows a device to broadcast audio to multiple receivers simultaneously, instead of just one to one, and it benefits not only those with hearing loss but the public at large.
The hearables deluge includes hearing aids and earbuds from many makers that can assist those with hearing loss, plus a diverse range of smartphones, dongles, transceivers, loudspeakers, and even operating systems like Windows and Android. In two categories—TV sets and professional-grade assistive listening systems—there was only one company represented in either category.
But that has recently changed—now there are two. The Auri system from ListenTech/Ampetronic, and TV sets from Samsung, have just been joined by Williams Sound and LG.
Assistive Listening
Williams Sound says their new Infinium system “is the next-generation Auracast broadcast audio solution for public and commercial spaces, designed specifically for AV professionals by Williams AV. Available as a complete system, Infinium empowers AV integrators to design and deploy seamless, high-quality audio experiences across diverse environments.
“Applications such as streaming TV audio to personal devices in public spaces, providing crystal-clear interpretation audio, enhancing live event experiences with multi-language support, are among the multiple possibilities for this solution, leveraging Bluetooth LE Audio and Auracast technology.”
Like their competitor’s Auri system, Infinium offers a two-channel capability that would allow venues to provide real-time interpretation and assistive listening in different languages simultaneously, ensuring accessibility for diverse audiences. It would also enable one system to provide assistive listening to two different audiences in two different rooms in the venue. Like the Auri system, Auracast-enabled receivers are available, making the new system ADA compliant.
Auracast TV
Since August 2023, electronics giant Samsung has been the sole manufacturer of TVs enabled to broadcast using Auracast. They have just recently been joined by another giant—LG.
By sharing Auracast technology with U.S. hearing aid maker Starkey, both firms have announced devices offering enhanced accessibility for people with hearing loss through the power of Auracast streaming. The launch of LG’s new 2025 OLED and QNED evo TVs, partnered with Starkey’s Edge AI Auracast enabled hearing aids, allows users to experience higher fidelity streaming and the ability to stream to multiple users at one time.
With LG, you can turn on Auracast broadcasting and select a quality level: 16kHz, 24kHz, or 48kHz. Users can then each listen to their devices at a personalized volume. They can do so using any of the hearing aids, earbuds, headphones, or other listening devices now available.
These TVs, like so many of the other hearables jumped on by techies, have already received praise from reviewer John Higgins of Business Insider. He reports that “from your headphones app, you can connect to the broadcast signal with any number of devices.
“With the JBL and the LG headphones, the process worked flawlessly with audio playing through both, and I could watch without distracting my family or worrying about being too loud for my neighbors late at night. The Earfun were a bit tricky to get to work, but that was a fault of the earbuds and their app, as opposed to the C5.”
Higgins went on to say there was “no lag between headphones and the TV, so the Auracast connection could help people better control the intelligibility of what they’re watching.”
These new products add to the list of devices that, thanks to Auracast, are “hearable” for people with hearing loss as well as for the general public. Auracast will, as it becomes more established, improve communication access for people with hearing loss in settings where older assistive listening technology was either impractical or impossible.
Hearing Health magazine staff writer Stephen O. Frazier maintains and updates a list of Auracast-capable devices on his website Loop New Mexico.
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