Very nice. I'm right now sitting in front of a schematics of a nice modern modular stereo hi-fi amplifier that I'm building. I made sure to leave plenty of internal interconnects for BTO radio modules, so that I could accomodate for Bluetooth, DAB, UPnP rendering, TI CC8520 or whatever wireless standard would be coming my way later down the line.
Seems that I can now plan to add a Google Cast radio module that can be integrated into the device. I don't even have to change my design it seems, I don't even have to put all my money on this horse, and I can still do without this gadget at first and get the basic device to market as quickly as possible.
Will do! I'm finishing up the design right now, and I plan to go DIY first anyways in order to get some quick feedback, circumvent expensive EMI certification, and to sell some units before having to go into case manufacturing. As soon as the prototype shows it's working at the quality level I hope it will, we'll start marketing it, and I'll make sure to drop you a note right then!
This is really cool! I've looked far and wide for got a good stereo amplifier that is customizable, but such things don't seem to exist! Please let us know more!
Don't care about NDAs as much. At least not as much as about cut tape availability at the usual distributors. I'm fine as long as I can buy 100 chips at mouser instead of buying an obscure reel in shenzen (as might be the case for hdmi transceivers btw). They mentioned a couple chip manufacturers in the announcement, so I'm hoping they will follow through with that, or at the least, make modules available.
The same has been going on for digital radio recently. Only silabs have decent chips at 10€ per piece in single quantities, the rest is all large modules and obsolete chips that are all "not recommended for new designs".
Same for Bluetooth. CSR is quite hard to reach, chips are NDAed, and chip programmers and documentation is hard to get by unless you go the aliexpress route. Then suddenly the modules are easier to place on my PCB than the chip, amazingly cheap, and even the programmers are available as knockoffs for 50 dollars instead of 800.
It sometimes feels unprofessional to seemingly tack random Chinese Lego blocks onto each other, but apparently that's how the industry runs. I've even stopped mocking huge Javascript libraries recently, in sheer appreciation of this realisation ;-)
There usually are antenna output pins even on some of the cheapest Bluetooth modules, and I plan to go for an all metal case anyways. You've certainly got a point though ;-)
Seems that I can now plan to add a Google Cast radio module that can be integrated into the device. I don't even have to change my design it seems, I don't even have to put all my money on this horse, and I can still do without this gadget at first and get the basic device to market as quickly as possible.
Neat.