What Is Bluetooth 6.0? Why The Newest Audio Connectivity Standard Is Worth Getting Excited About

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ZDNET's cardinal takeaways

• The Bluetooth Special Interest Group (SIG) released Bluetooth 6.0 successful Sept. 2024.
• Its notable features pave nan measurement for cosmopolitan instrumentality tracking, little latency, and much businesslike wireless connections.
• Although recently released smartphones person adopted nan caller wireless standard, headphones and earbuds person not yet caught up.

Bluetooth and headphones spell together for illustration peanut food and jelly; it's nan exertion that allows you to spell wireless, but wireless listening isn't its only characteristic. Bluetooth versions are responsible for audio compression and transmission, arsenic good arsenic latency and relationship stability. As nan exertion advances, you tin look guardant to getting much retired of your headphones and earbuds.

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Despite nan Bluetooth Special Interest Group (SIG) releasing nan Bluetooth 6.2 halfway specification successful Nov., you'll find that galore headphones released arsenic precocious arsenic this twelvemonth still characteristic Bluetooth 5.3 aliases 5.4. Not each specification brings mind-blowing features, but location are connectivity, latency, and capacity improvements to look guardant to wrong nan 6.0+ specifications.

This year, respective smartphones but less headphones debuted pinch Bluetooth 6. As you expect to spot much Bluetooth 6 products successful 2026, present are its astir notable features and what they mean for you.

Connection efficiency

Bluetooth 6 introduces improvements to really Bluetooth-enabled devices find and brace pinch 1 another, creating faster and smoother instrumentality pairing. Hopefully, this betterment will beryllium astir noticeable to group who for illustration Bluetooth multipoint, a characteristic that allows 1 Bluetooth instrumentality to prevention aggregate connections and move betwixt them.

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If you presently usage Bluetooth multipoint, you whitethorn announcement it's sometimes unreliable, glitchy, and frustrating, particularly erstwhile switching a brace of headphones from a smartphone to a laptop aliases tablet. Bluetooth 6 features Decision-Based Advertising Filtering and Monitoring Advertisers, which amended interoperability and alteration faster reconnections to antecedently paired Bluetooth devices. 

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Bluetooth's usage of nan word "advertising" has small to do pinch influencing your buying decisions and much to do pinch really devices broadcast their beingness wrong a Bluetooth network. With improved advertizing methods successful Bluetooth 6, your headphones broadcast smaller, low-power signals to your devices to denote their expertise to connect. Then, your telephone tin easy observe this relationship for instant pairing without utilizing overmuch artillery power.

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Your headphones and smartphone must person Bluetooth 6.0+ compatibility to return advantage of these features. Fortunately, galore smartphones released successful 2025, specified arsenic nan Google Pixel 10 lineup and Apple iPhone 17 family, are equipped pinch Bluetooth 6. You'll conscionable request to hold for headphone manufacturers to drawback up.

Latency gains

Older Bluetooth versions knowledgeable issues pinch audio/video latency, wherever a hold occurred betwixt nan audio you perceive and nan video you watch. Although much caller Bluetooth versions decreased latency for video-watching, arsenic mobile gaming and AR/VR proceed to evolve, truthful does nan method of experiencing its audio via Bluetooth. 

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As a result, Bluetooth offers improvements to nan Isochronous Adaptation Layer (ISOAL), which is responsible for transmitting real-time data, specified arsenic audio. Enhancing this exertion optimizes aggregate Bluetooth layers, enabling faster transmission speeds and larger information transfers tailored to your audio needs.

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Thus, mobile gamers whitethorn not request to ligament their headphones aliases earbuds to their instrumentality for unnoticeable latency. Additionally, console and PC gamers whitethorn find much elasticity successful their mundane headphones and earbuds, uncovering that they tin grip nan audio demands of single-player games.

Universal instrumentality tracking

Bluetooth Channel Sounding is simply a highly anticipated characteristic of Bluetooth 6, acknowledgment to its imaginable to democratize Find My Device technology. It offers centimeter precision for instrumentality tracking, allowing users to find devices, specified arsenic headphones, that are not equipped pinch an ultra-wideband (UWB) chip.

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UWB chips besides connection precise instrumentality location, but they are much costly and much analyzable to merge into each device's motherboard. Earbuds for illustration Apple's AirPods see a UWB chip, which enables them to beryllium detected wrong your Find My network. However, astir headphones don't person a UWB chip, truthful Bluetooth intends to connection Channel Sounding arsenic an replacement solution. 

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Channel Sounding utilizes Phase-based Ranging (PBR) and Round-trip Time (RTT) technologies to transmit and cipher nan region and guidance betwixt 2 Bluetooth devices. Given that Channel Sounding operates connected Bluetooth's Low Energy (LE) network, and astir instrumentality chips are already compatible pinch Bluetooth, nan request for UWB chips successful headphones and earbuds importantly decreases.

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With Channel Sounding, your smartphone from 1 shaper could find your earbuds from different manufacturer, provided some devices are equipped pinch Bluetooth 6 aliases higher. There aren't galore mainstream headphones and earbuds disposable successful nan US pinch Bluetooth 6, but this will apt alteration successful 2026.

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The take of newer wireless technologies is typically slower for headphones and earbuds compared to smartphones. Case successful point: nan iPhone 17 has Bluetooth 6, but nan AirPods Pro 3 person Bluetooth 5.4. 

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However, you shouldn't expect Apple to adopt these technologies anytime soon, arsenic nan institution prefers its proprietary wireless technologies. The latest real-world applications of Bluetooth's innovations are easier to usage pinch Google's Pixel devices. 

Earlier this year, Google expanded Bluetooth Auracast support to much smartphones, headphones, earbuds, and proceeding aids, enabling users to stock audio pinch different devices that besides support nan Bluetooth standard. So, if you're successful nan US and want to beryllium an early adopter of Bluetooth's latest technologies, an Android telephone is nan measurement to go.