The announcement of Bluetooth LE Audio [1] created significant hype in the tech community. News blogs, YouTubers, and tech enthusiasts were all excited about a wireless audio standard that is finally contemporary. Today, four years later, LE Audio has made nearly zero impact on the market. Despite this, the Legacy Bluetooth Audio standard is plainly terrible. What are the reasons, and what is the outlook?
Why is the current Bluetooth Audio standard bad?
The technological foundation is over 30 years old.
Bluetooth was originally developed for wireless headsets in the late 1980s by Ericsson [2] (hence the naming of the technology after a Scandinavian king). Since then, the technology has been extended and stacked with layers of features, but it hasn't fundamentally changed. Looking at today's requirements for a wireless audio protocol, it is not surprising that Bluetooth is considered unreliable and troublesome.
Every manufacturer bastardizes Bluetooth in its own way.
There is a nice blog post that tries to explain all the different implementations: https://habr.com/en/articles/456182/. The xkcd comic gets to the point:
Basically, one has the choice between the generic SBC codec, which is low-quality and high-latency, or some proprietary codec that only works with a specific brand of headphones and/or smartphones. These also come with their own set of problems. For example, LDAC, which is Sony's proprietary high-fidelity codec, is only supported on a few devices and has high power consumption, resulting in very poor battery life.
The result of this morass is a poor user experience. Before trying a Bluetooth device, it's impossible to predict the latency (no fun watching videos with audio delay), whether the device will connect the next time it's turned on, or how long the battery life will be, etc.
The Bluetooth SIG is not doing a good job.
The Bluetooth SIG is the organization responsible for the development of the Bluetooth standard. They are more or less directly responsible for the current situation. They failed to avoid the fragmentation of the standard and didn't put enough effort into moving the standard forward. As of today, there is little incentive for manufacturers to adopt the new LE Audio standard. Most resources for development come from hardware manufacturers, especially Nordic Semiconductor, who is pushing the standard forward almost single-handedly.
What is the current state of implementation?
Let's take a look at the market. As of today (September 2024), there are only a handful of headphones that support LE Audio [3]. In fact, they are hard to find because the manufacturers don't even promote the LE Audio feature much. On the other hand, only some Google Pixel and some Samsung smartphones support LE Audio. The situation is even worse for computer users. Windows 11 supports LE Audio, but in a recent test during our Discovery Week, it was not possible to connect with any LE Audio devices. Apple and Linux users have no support at all.
As for development resources, Nordic Semiconductor is the only manufacturer that provides a complete development kit for LE Audio. Other companies like Infineon or Silicon Labs have some development hardware as well, but they are not nearly as comprehensive and are very poorly documented.
When doing research, it appears that a lot of devices already have support for LE Audio. For example, most Qualcomm chipsets have LE Audio capabilities. Android also provides all APIs for implementation. But the reality is, as we found out during Discovery Week, that the compatibility only exists on paper, and that it is currently not available for most devices.
To be fair, during this year's CES, there were some announcements of new headphones that support LE Audio [4]. Big brands like Sennheiser finally announced their new generation of headphones that support LE Audio.
Why is the situation like this, and will it change?
There is usually only one reason for the industry to adopt a new technology, and that is if they can make more money.
Everything about LE Audio is superior compared to classic Bluetooth. The headphones will last longer, they will have better audio quality, they will have lower latency, and they will have better features, etc. But most companies have already built up their own technology around classic Bluetooth and are not willing to move on until they have milked the last drop out of it. This collective laziness, plus the inaccessibility of efficient development, prevents the industry from moving forward.
In our opinion, what the market needs is an initiative from a big player that pushes the adoption of LE Audio. It will probably result in a domino effect, as we have seen in the past with pioneer products like the iPhone, Bose speakers/headphones, or the Apple Watch. Until then, our Motius-built LE Audio speaker will do for our office parties.
Sources
[2] https://www.ericsson.com/en/blog/6/2022/ericsson-bluetooth
[3] https://www.whathifi.com/advice/bluetooth-le-audio-what-is-the-next-gen-standard-what-devices-support-it; The list is from October 2023, but it has not significantly changed since then.
[4] https://www.engadget.com/bluetooth-auracast-is-everywhere-at-ces-2024-so-what-is-it-224509414.html
