Thursday

RF24Audio Library Released:
 Wireless Digital Audio Streaming and more with Arduino and NRF24L01 modules


  Its been a little while in the making, but I am finally releasing my RF24Audio library. The library offers a number of features, mainly the ability to wirelessly stream realtime data or audio captured from an analog input to one or more other devices. 'Other devices' can include Arduinos, PCs, or any other device capable of reading the data stream.
  Since the library utilizes the core RF24 radio library, advanced usage and customization can be configured, and allows interaction with audio devices in a number of different ways. The TMRpcm audio library (WAV audio from SD card) has been updated to support the RF24Audio library as well, being capable of multicasting audio to a number of devices. A demonstration of this interaction is shown in the following video:



  The library is designed to be very easy to setup and configure, just connect a radio module, microphone and speaker. External buttons are optional, and are managed internally by the library. This can be disabled to allow further customization via keypads, etc. Users can also utilize the core RF24 library to interact with the audio devices in a number of ways, including capturing audio streams and feeding the data to a PC.

Features:
  • User friendly setup and configuration: For beginners too: Just connect a radio module, microphone, and speaker. The library handles the rest.
  • Recording and broadcasting of audio to multiple devices using only Arduino, RF24 modules and input/output devices (speaker,microphone)
  • Multicast: Enables broadcasting to all nodes, single nodes, or partial groups of nodes
  • External controls: Use external buttons or code to control audio streaming
  • Volume control: Use external buttons or code to control audio volume on receiving devices.
  • Remote control: Start recording remotely via radio commands (Currently cannot stop remote recording)
  • LED Indicator/Visualization: Indicates audio playback and amplitude.
  • Customization: Using the underlying RF24 core library allows custom interaction with audio devices running this library. Receive audio data and stream it to a PC over USB, create and broadcast computer generated audio in realtime, and more! See the USB_Audio example for more info.
  • Create additional node groups: Allows nodes to join private broadcast groups, and multicast only within their group as desired

Pin Assignments:
  • Speakers: Arduino Uno,Nano,etc: pins 9,10 Arduino Mega: 11,12 (Timer pins cannot be changed, but can use 1 pin and ground)
  • pin A0: Microphone/Input pin
  • pin A1: Transmission/Recording Start pin
  • pin A2: Volume Up
  • pin A3: Volume Down
  • pin A4: Trigger remote recording (Only working with dual devices)
  • Cannot be changed: LED Pin: Uno,Nano,etc: pin 6 Mega 2560: pin 13 (main LED pin)

Links:
Library Documentation
Download

Source Code:
RF24Audio Library
RF24 Radio Library
TMRpcm Audio Library



Sunday

Testing New RF24 Arduino Library Fork for NRF24L01 Radio Modules: Comparative Testing - Transfer Rates

Overview:

Per my previous blog posts, I have been working on some improvements to the RF24 radio library, and the main benefits of the changes have been realized. The following video compares the difference against the fork found at https://github.com/gcopeland/rf24. I did not compare against the main library since the gcopeland fork outperforms it quite a bit already.




The new library, source code and documentation can be found at https://github.com/TMRh20/RF24. Info in previous blog posts.

More to come...

Installing and using the RF24 Communication stack on Arduino and RPi - 2024

 Installing and using the RF24 Communication stack on Arduino and RPi - 2024 I made a video to demonstrate current installation and usage of...