Bluetooth SIG Announces 'LE Audio' With Audio Sharing, Lower Data Consumption, Hearing Aid Support and More

[MacRumors]

The Bluetooth Special Interest Group (SIG) today announced the upcoming launch of LE Audio, which is the next-generation of Bluetooth audio. LE Audio will bring enhanced Bluetooth audio performance, it will add support for Audio Sharing, and it will add support for hearing aids.

LE Audio features a new high-quality, low-power audio codec that will bring improved performance and better power consumption by offering high-quality audio even at low data rates. Developers will be able to create audio products that offer longer battery life or are smaller thanks to the need for less battery capacity.

With support for multi-stream audio, Bluetooth LE will allow for the transmission of multiple, independent, synchronized audio streams between an audio source device like a smartphone and one or more audio sink devices like earbuds. This will improve performance of wireless earbuds, offering a better stereo imaging experience, plus it will make it easier to use voice assistant services and swap between multiple audio sources.

LE Audio includes support for hearing aids, and it will allow for the development of hearing aids that also include the benefits of Bluetooth audio.

Broadcast Audio, another LE Audio feature, allows an audio source to broadcast one or more audio streams to an unlimited number of devices, officially enabling audio sharing capabilities.

Bluetooth Audio Sharing will allow people to share their Bluetooth audio experience with others around them (i.e, listening to music from the same smartphone), and there's also a location-based feature that will let public venues like airports, bars, gyms, and cinemas share Bluetooth audio that "augments the visitor experience."

"Location-based Audio Sharing holds the potential to change the way we experience the world around us," said Peter Liu of Bose Corporation and member of the Bluetooth SIG Board of Directors. "For example, people will be able to select the audio being broadcast by silent TVs in public venues, and places like theaters and lecture halls will be able to share audio to assist visitors with hearing loss as well as provide audio in multiple languages."

Apple, a Bluetooth SIG member, has already enabled audio sharing functionality with its AirPods and Powerbeats Pro headphones, but that functionality is specific to iOS devices and a limited number of earbuds. LE Audio will bring those capabilities to all headphones that have LE Audio support.

When LE Audio launches, Bluetooth audio will support two operation modes. The LE Audio will operate on the Bluetooth Low Energy radio, while classic Audio will operate on the Bluetooth Classic radio. LE Audio will be a replacement for Classic Audio, as it supports the same audio products and use cases while also adding new features.

The Bluetooth specifications defining LE Audio will see a release throughout the second half of 2020. More information about LE Audio is available on the Bluetooth SIG website.

Article Link: Bluetooth SIG Announces 'LE Audio' With Audio Sharing, Lower Data Consumption, Hearing Aid Support and More

 

[Trhodezy]

Awesome.

 

[christarp]

To anyone thinking of waiting for this in new earbuds: The specification is being released in the later half of this year. It will probably be another year or 2 after that before it's implemented in products that you can buy.

 

[toke lahti]

Is there any advancement on lower delay?
I'd like to use bt for monitoring video camera's audio and Apple does not support any aptX, do they?

 

[konqerror]

Is there any advancement on lower delay?
I'd like to use bt for monitoring video camera's audio and Apple does not support any aptX, do they?

There's no latency problems watching video on any modern smartphone because the phone will delay the video to sync up. The main issues are with gaming.

 

[7thson]

Are they dropping the numbers(BT 5.0) for LE? The opposite of what the WiFi standards did? I hope not. Hopefully it’ll be BT LE1.0 and so on, but they should just advance to BT 6.0 and not use LE.

 

[Peace]

The Audio Codec intrigues me the most .

 

[toke lahti]

There's no latency problems watching video on any modern smartphone because the phone will delay the video to sync up. The main issues are with gaming.

Key words: video camera.

 

[konqerror]

Key words: video camera.

I know. I read. I repeat: not an issue. Network buffering and compression latency (H.264 and whatever audio codec you're using) is far greater than the 100 ms of Bluetooth audio.

In fact, you should not use aptX because you don't stream aptX from a video camera. You should have the video camera compress audio into AAC, and Airpods can decode that natively, eliminating a whole round trip compression.

 

[drumcat]

Proper link:

LE Audio | Bluetooth® Technology Website

learn about bluetooth Building on 20 years of innovation, LE Audio enhances the performance of Bluetooth® audio, adds support for hearing aids, and introduces Auracast™ broadcast audio…

www.bluetooth.com

Also, I think there's a reason they aren't putting AAC in their chart. At 192kbps, AAC is extremely transparent. It'll be very interesting to see what they can do with LC3 as a codec... it is described much like High Efficiency (HE-AAC) was, but that didn't go anywhere. It was pretty good, but noticeable.

If it's noticeable, it's DOA. Standard 4.1 BT is already poopy enough, and AAC is outstanding. No one needs a middle ground.

That said, it'd be really cool if phones have a proximity broadcast. Imagine if your phone pumped out tunes, and everyone within 20 metres could listen to that "channel"? The possibilities are endless. Think classrooms, office meetings, video con... hell, even airplanes, and other carriers...

 

[Solomani]

Does this new Bluetooth address the.... "Bluetooth lag"? I click PLAY on my iPhone. It takes at least a second to start hearing audio on the (wireless) speaker. By the time the speaker starts playing music, the first 2 seconds of music was already missed. Sad sack, Bluetooth.

 

[the.snitch]

Le audio is magnifique

 

[calstanford]

Firmware update or throw-away-thousands-of-dollars buy new hardware kinda thing?

 

[SgtPepper12]

Firmware update or throw-away-thousands-of-dollars buy new hardware kinda thing?

Fun fact: You don't actually have to throw away your old equipment when new one is released. It'll still work just fine!

 

[Tech198]

I never have used Bluetooth, but if it helps hearing aid sufferers, then so be it

 

[entropys]

I never have used Bluetooth, but if it helps hearing aid sufferers, then so be it

Considering the price of hearing aids hearing challenged people certainly are suffering from hearing aids!

 

[bernoulli]

Firmware update or throw-away-thousands-of-dollars buy new hardware kinda thing?

Fun fact: You don't actually have to throw away your old equipment when new one is released. It'll still work just fine!

Wait, so you don't have to bin the year old iPhone and immediately get the new one? Very risqué.

 

[canonical]

Any detail on radiation levels, effects on oxidative stress levels, sperm/testicular damage, neuropsychiatric effects, apoptosis, cellular DNA damage or endocrine changes from the new version compared to existing Bluetooth devices?

 

[kingjames1970]

Wait, so you don't have to bin the year old iPhone and immediately get the new one? Very risqué.

I'm no eco-warrior but I think anybody with any sense realises that many people do and it is time that all manufacturers need to attempt to upgrade existing products for customers where possible, via software/firmware. Apple have made a start with iOS updates no longer making older phones unusably slow and I just got a firmware update for my Nikon camera. My LG TV bought in 2019 doesn't get Airplay - wtf is that all about? We can't keep dumping 'old' stuff into landfill because of minor upgrades, 'things' need to last longer or the environment truly is screwed.

 

[PickUrPoison]

Any detail on radiation levels, effects on oxidative stress levels, sperm/testicular damage, neuropsychiatric effects, apoptosis, cellular DNA damage or endocrine changes from the new version compared to existing Bluetooth devices?

From what I read on the internets, all of the above are increased by at least a factor of 100 to 1000. However, chem trails are almost entirely eliminated, as is cancer from windmills. So overall I think it’s worth it. ymmv.

 

[Marty_Ventura]

Eager to see what comes of Bluetooth tech. I'm pretty happy with the way it is, now!

 

[MisterMxyzptlk]

Hope to see capability mentioned at WWDC

 

[Vanilla35]

Is it just me, or is this ground breaking? This sounds like it'll finally lead to us being able to get wireless tech that is both extremely small, and also usable (battery lasts long enough).

I think this would also help to accelerate the progress of smart home products and other random home products that could adopt 5g and bluetooth technology to become integrated.
[automerge]1578408672[/automerge]

I'm no eco-warrior but I think anybody with any sense realises that many people do and it is time that all manufacturers need to attempt to upgrade existing products for customers where possible, via software/firmware. Apple have made a start with iOS updates no longer making older phones unusably slow and I just got a firmware update for my Nikon camera. My LG TV bought in 2019 doesn't get Airplay - wtf is that all about? We can't keep dumping 'old' stuff into landfill because of minor upgrades, 'things' need to last longer or the environment truly is screwed.

That's not going to be changing anytime soon. That's how you drive the economy, and that's what pretty much every country is constantly trying to do, and rewards.

What you can do is try to make your manufacturing processes more efficient, use more recyclable materials, and probably get extremely more efficient and effective recycling facilities. The US ones are utter trash. They can't even recycle half the plastics that are provided to them. They end up in a land fill anyway. It's so bad.

 

[kohlson]

It will probably be another year or 2 after that before it's implemented in products that you can buy.

Perf - just in time to replace the AirPods I bought recently.

 

[bviktor]

I'd much prefer support for the Opus codec instead of the current garbage ones.