Some notes on latency

For a system like this, latency is an important issue. How long does it take from when a note is played that it is heard in the headphones connected to the phone?

The acceptable values for this is subjective, but a number of less than 20 milliseconds is a good ballpark figure. The actual numbers you will get will vary depending on a number of factors.

In real world practical tests with the correct configuration, we have measured latency values of about 10 milliseconds.

When a musician connects to BatMixer, his/her status icon will turn green and the latency will appear as a field in the Musicians Grid.

In this example, I am seeing a value of 3 milliseconds. This number represents the total latency measured from when a sound is received by BatMixer to when it is subsequently picked up by Bat Ears

In addition to this latency number, there are two other latencies that cannot be measured by Bat Mixer.

Firstly there is the latency of the audio device that you connect to your computer. Your device's documentation should have more details on that.

Secondly and probably more relevant is your phone's latency. In practical experiments this was found to have a significant bearing. The bottom line is that you should have a good spec phone. One of the phones used in testing was a Samsung Galaxy Note 8. This device yielded total latencies of around 10 ms.

We encourage you to try the free demo version of BatEars to make sure you are happy with the latency before committing to purchase the full version.

Network Latency

The network latency is something that contributes most to the latency number that appears in the Musicians Grid field above. This is something that you should be able to improve on if you are seeing larger numbers, e.g. above 10 ms.

Using a 5g WiFi router has been shown to improve network latency considerably. In some tests it reduced the latency from 25ms to 3ms.

It is also possible to use a phone to act as a mobile hotspot to eliminate the requirement for getting an additional WiFi router. This can, of course, be one of the phones being used as an in ear monitor. If possible, set up the phone as a 5g hotspot.

Setting up a 5g hotspot on Android

The procedure for setting up a 5g hotspot varies from phone to phone so you should consult your phone's documentation if needs be. The procedure for configuring a 5g hotspot for a Samsung Galaxy is as follows.

• Open Settings
• Open Connections
• Open Mobile Hotspot and Tethering
• Open Mobile Hotspot
• Click on the three dots on the top right of the screen and select Configure Mobile Hotspot
• At the bottom of the screen, select Show advanced options
• Ensure the item Use 5 GHz band when available is checked

Setting up a 5g hotspot on iPhone

The iPhone 12 allows you to create a 5g hotspot. Previous versions of iPhone will connect in 5g mode but cannot host a 5g hotspot.