The authorities behind the development of Bluetooth dubbed Bluetooth Special Interest Group(SIG) have announced a new standard called Bluetooth Low Energy (LE). Under the new standard, Bluetooth will be able to offer a couple of new functionalities that deliver massive improvements from the current standard.
Part of the main new features brought by the new framework includes broadcast audio support.
That means that soon, you will be able to connect a single device like your smartphone to several other devices like speakers and even headphones at the same time.
Bluetooth LE will also bring multistream audio support natively. Multistream audio support means that Bluetooth capable devices like wireless buds will receive audio independently instead of depending on a single bud, which supplies audio to the other. Most wireless buds work using this mechanism. Multistream audio will, therefore, enable better audio listening experience while using wireless buds.
Additionally, multistream support will also make it easier to share Bluetooth audio between multiple devices.
Bluetooth LE will also bring better higher-quality audio and hearing aid support.
The association also announced a new codec dubbed Low Complexity Communication(LC3), which will deliver high-quality audio while using less power. The LC3 codec will take over the current outdated SBC codec, which could only be able to provide high-quality audio when you increase the bitrate. Consequently, that comes with its con since power consumption increases.
With the removal of the headphone jack getting normalized, changes to how Bluetooth works are much needed at this point.
The group says the “Bluetooth specifications that define LE Audio are expected to be released throughout the first half of 2020.” So devices supporting this standard will likely take some time before hitting the shelves.
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