CLARIFICATION ABOUT RACER BT HEADPHONES AND DONGLE

Hello all.. we see a lot of comments regarding Makro RACER BT headphones and dongle so I wanted to clarify a few things:

First of all, adding BT headphones was not an after-thought. From the concept stage of the product, adding wireless headphones capability to the machine existed. However, we had 2 options:
Making the module built-in to the machine or providing it in an external dongle. For us, both were equal in terms of engineering but it would make a difference in terms of the pricing. If we had the module built-in we had no choice but to add the cost to the machine which in return would increase the final retail price. As wireless headphones are not preferred by all users and it is a personal choice, we did not want somebody to pay extra for a feature they would not use so we decided to keep it as an optional feature.

Second, the dongle provided is a Nokta/Makro developed dongle and it has been optimized and tested for use with the optional Philips BT headphones.
Users may use alternative BT headphones but we cannot guarantee the performance as we have no way of testing all the BT headphones out there.

Should you have more questions, please feel free to contact me at dilek@noktadetectors.com

Thank you!!

Thank you for that info.-----Is there any delay at all on target reports with the optional Makro Racer (developed dongle) and provided Philips BT headphones?



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/27/2015 10:03AM by D&P-OR.

any pics of the dongle and the size of it and how it mounts to the control box ?will it fall off in the field ?
please provide photos of the assemby ,thanks .
how long do the batteries last with the dongle mounted and unmounted ?or is there a battery in the dongle as well ??
and are batteries rechargable

AKAs are built with the TX integrated and just is switachable for use



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/27/2015 01:49PM by diggers.

Nokta Detectors Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Hello all.. we see a lot of comments regarding
> Makro RACER BT headphones and dongle so I wanted
> to clarify a few things:
>
> First of all, adding BT headphones was not an
> after-thought. From the concept stage of the
> product, adding wireless headphones capability to
> the machine existed. However, we had 2 options:
> Making the module built-in to the machine or
> providing it in an external dongle. For us, both
> were equal in terms of engineering but it would
> make a difference in terms of the pricing. If we
> had the module built-in we had no choice but to
> add the cost to the machine which in return would
> increase the final retail price. As wireless
> headphones are not preferred by all users and it
> is a personal choice, we did not want somebody to
> pay extra for a feature they would not use so we
> decided to keep it as an optional feature.
>
> Second, the dongle provided is a Nokta/Makro
> developed dongle and it has been optimized and
> tested for use with the optional Philips BT
> headphones.
> Users may use alternative BT headphones but we
> cannot guarantee the performance as we have no way
> of testing all the BT headphones out there.
>
> Should you have more questions, please feel free
> to contact me at dilek@noktadetectors.com
>
> Thank you!!

actually, since the BT transmitter required is tiny (essentially a single chip), seems like it should have been implemented on the main pc board at the onset of design to lower cost. stand-alone implementation of the 'dongle' and the connectors, etc would have to be much, much higher cost, both in development and 'parts' cost along with complexity (connectors can be a potential point of failure)....doesn't make sense to me....is the connector USB?



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/27/2015 02:19PM by canslawhero.

Here is the text of an email response I received from Dilek regarding the Racer dongle and Blue Tooth implementation for wireless headphones.

My concerns:
It’s great that the Racer offers wireless headphones IF they work properly with no noticeable lag and with good intelligible tones.

I’m just curious how the Racer is different from other detectors where a dongle is plugged into the headphone jack and used to connect with a wireless set of headphones?
These have been used by individuals for several years, but with very spotty performance, quite often with poor tones and/or lag time that rendered the setup unusable.

Dilek's reply:
Hello Wayne..I will copy and paste our R&D manager's answer for you:

''Hi,

A delay in audio is of the nature of the Bluetooth audio, it always exists, the question is how long (or short to be acceptable) the delay is. A2DP and similar Bluetooth profiles provide a good (or at least acceptable) media quality sound but seems “not instant” because of the delay in signal processing and digital filtering algorithms they devise. Digital signal processing algorithms/CODECS, by their nature, require to process “the past of the sound” to improve sound quality and this causes a delay (in A2DP codecs, it is usually between 100ms-1000ms). This delay usually does not matter when the sound flow is unidirectional. In cases where “instantaneous” transfer required, such as bidirectional speech (such as hands free use of phones, handsets or similar communication equipment) Bluetooth is still able to transfer the audio signals quasi-instantaneously (shorter than 100ms delay), but with a noise that remain weakly filtered. HSP and HFP protocols are used for voice transfer, HFP is newer than HSP. The voice quality of these are acceptable for communication, furthermore for basic sound transfers.

Most metal detector people try to use a “commercial media transmitters” those are designed for one way media transfer (i.e. listening music), these devices cause a significant delay that the position of a metal cannot be located successfully. A metal detector is not practical with these pluggable equipment unless they designed to use communications purpose (not media).

In development of the Racer; we decided to use the HFP profile that required us dealing with the background noises. After several anti-noise improvements that took several months for reworks to implement the BT module, we succeeded to find an optimal SNR with HFP. This preference lead us to select headsets that the noise prevention combination was also optimal. Racer BT audio supports principally all BT headsets, but not all are not tested. That is why we strongly suggest Nokta/Makro supplied headset instead of cheap products or media optimized HQ headsets.

Briefly; The delay (lag) of audio from bluetooth of Racer is below 100mS (typically under 50ms, 1/20 of a second), and this is not predictable by the user.

Here, I have to include the information that the BT module is a module level design and is an option for Racer, but this is not a plugged third party BT device or a card from such a device. It contains an audio proven and ECC certified programmable audio BT module inside which is solely designed for this purpose, not different very much than using an integrated circuit which have an antenna. The purpose of BT in Racer is transferring the audio as fast and noiseless as possible to a BT headphone.

B. Kutlu YAVAS''

Pleasant Garden, NC
AT Max, Nokta Impact, MX Sport, Nokta FORS Relic, GPX 4800, Infinium, Racer, Deus, F75SE, Nautilus DMC II (order of acquisition, last to first)

Does an archeologist argue with a plow? A bureaucrat with a bulldozer?

Thank you... I was about the post this but I see it is taken care of already!

Another reason to use a 3rd party BT module is they don't have the expense of FCC OET to go through. The chip/module already has this FCC approval. If integrated into the board I believe they would have had to do the FCC OET process cost/delays to sell in the US.

For interest, the 2.4GHz wireless headphone transmitter in the Whites V3 is a self-contained circuit, with FCC / CE etc approvals already included. So provided you use the module in the way the manufacturer recommends, your product also meets the specs.