How Bluetooth LE Audio could amp up the next generation of AirPods

Bluetooth audio is about to level up with new technologies that will hopefully find their way into Apple products soon.

- JASON CROSS

You may have noticed that nearly all modern iPhones and AirPods list support for Bluetooth 5.0 (the first-gen AirPods supported by Bluetooth 4.2). You might surmise, then, that audio streams are being sent using a modern, advanced Bluetooth connection. Not so fast on that assumption!

With nearly all headphones (and phones, tablets, or laptops) that list Bluetooth 5.0 on the spec sheet, that's not the case at all. The core Bluetooth audio standards used for nearly all wireless audio are based on what they call "Bluetooth Classic," the foundation of which is Bluetooth 2.1 + EDR. That spec is around 15 years old, and while Bluetooth technology has gone through a bunch of changes and improvements since then, most of those improvements have been to enhance things other than the standard audio transmission used for music and calls.

More than two years ago, the Bluetooth SIG (special interest group) ratified a new Bluetooth 5.2 standard, and at the same time it introduced a new audio spec: LE Audio. (The LE stands for Low Energy.) Part of the LE Audio spec is a new audio compression codec: LC3. Together, these two technologies are poised to give wireless earbuds and headphones a massive leap forward in performance and features. Here's what you need to know.

LE AUDIO

The big innovation of Bluetooth 4.0 was something called "Bluetooth Low Energy," an entirely new protocol made to provide low-latency, high-bandwidth connections using very little power. It evolved over the next few releases, finally getting all the features required for today's Internet of Things devices in Bluetooth 5.0. It's Bluetooth LE that makes AirTags possible, for example.