New Bluetooth standard copies best features of Apple, Qualcomm’s proprietary tech

Bluetooth SIG, the industry group that maintains the Bluetooth wireless communications standard used in numerous devices, announced a major update to the standard called Bluetooth LE Audio this week.

Bluetooth SIG previously introduced Bluetooth LE with a focus on power efficiency, but that emphasized improvements for low-bandwidth devices. Even though audio is one of the most common uses of Bluetooth, it still faces some frustrating bottlenecks and pitfalls. Bluetooth LE Audio brings improvements specifically oriented toward audio devices.

The previous audio solution isn’t going anywhere, though; companies making Bluetooth audio devices will be able to choose between the old tech and the new based on their goals. Arguably the flagship improvement here is support for the Low Complexity Communication Codec (LC3). Currently, many of the millions of Bluetooth audio devices out there rely on the SBC codec (though some also use Qualcomm's AptX). But LC3 promises greater audio quality at lower bitrates and power consumption levels than SBC.