ZDNET’s key takeaways
- Bluetooth LE Audio and Channel Sounding are making their way to market.
- Compatible products natively work with Android only.
- Apple’s adoption is on the horizon, but not until the very last minute.
Apple has long been the leader in proximity-based wireless features such as seamless audio and information handoff between devices, Spatial Audio, and device tracking. Bluetooth Channel Sounding promises to improve these features, but Apple requires a delayed Bluetooth 6.3 standard for third-party partners, and Bluetooth’s maturing LE Audio isn’t likely to reach the Apple ecosystem anytime soon.
Also: The future of Bluetooth audio is cooler than I expected
Meanwhile, Google is fast-tracking support; many Android smartphones — including Google Pixel, Samsung Galaxy, and Xiaomi — already support LE Audio and Channel Sounding. Support starts with smartphones, and peripherals like smart locks, tablets, speakers, headphones, earbuds, and Bluetooth trackers are coming to market, or updating their existing Bluetooth stack
The early bird gets the smart home
Nina Raemont/ZDNET
Apple recently entered the smart home game with the HomeView, its iOS-first smart home hub. Without third-party workarounds to please the ecosystem boundaries imposed by Apple, Google, and Amazon, it’s difficult, if not impossible, to add smart home devices from one brand to the other’s home hub in full capacity.
Beyond your ecosystem preferences lies Bluetooth’s Channel Sounding technology. This upgrade to the Bluetooth stack was added in 2024 with Bluetooth 6. Channel Sounding enables more accurate distance awareness in Bluetooth devices, providing enhanced security, accuracy, and, most importantly, ubiquity.
Also: Forget Wi-Fi: Apple is betting on Bluetooth with its new home devices
As manufacturers of Bluetooth trackers, smart locks, and digital car key solutions bring devices with Channel Sounding to market and announce plans to integrate the technology, there’s one major caveat: they’re only compatible with Android.
Soon enough, garage door openers, robot vacuums, smart sensors, and keypads will debut with Channel Sounding using the existing Bluetooth 6 and Bluetooth 6.1 protocols. Think about it: smart locks that unlock only when your Android phone is within a safe range, or smart sensors that automatically activate when they sense your Android phone within range.
Features like this are on the way, and none of them will be compatible with Apple devices — one point for Android.
Affordable products receive premium features
LE Audio is an extension of Bluetooth Low Energy, featuring the upgraded LC3 codec that replaces the old SBC standard, lower latency, reduced power consumption, multi-stream, and audio sharing
An LE Audio upgrade enables spatial audio on Android phones that don’t support Dolby Atmos encoding and can also enable independent audio streams for improved voice pickup.
Also: Your Bose headphones are getting a major Bluetooth upgrade
Thus, this upgrade results in an improved audio experience across the board and can easily be applied to an audio devicee, JBL, SteelSeries, and Samsung are adopting LE Audio, with Sony and JBL already implementing it into their midrange offerings
The next pivot will be Channel Sounding in these devices, using the existing network of Bluetooth-enabled devices to ping off others to locate them. With Channel Sounding, it’ll be easier to implement Find My capabilities in midrange speakers, headphones, and earbuds, where 50cm ranging is sufficient and ultra-wideband (UWB) is too expensive.
For example, Apple’s AirPods Max 2 lack a UWB chip but use crowdsourced Bluetooth pings from other devices on Apple’s Find My network to determine device location. Channel Sounding will operate the same way, but can make this device-location method more accurate and accessible for affordable devices.
Also: Bluetooth’s latest could solve a common connectivity problem
Because Channel Sounding is built into Bluetooth radio, it’s easy for manufacturers to implement it and omit additional radio-frequency technology when appropriate. Nearly every electronic device has Bluetooth, so the cost of manufacturing doesn’t increase when upgrading the Bluetooth stack.
As Channel Sounding and LE Audio become standard, it’ll trickle down to midrange and budget products. In the meantime, iOS users will continue to pay a brand premium for products that behave similarly, but with Apple-exclusive hardware and software.
Apple’s dilemma
Apple hasn’t entirely abandoned Bluetooth; Bluetooth Low Energy is a staple of Apple’s Bluetooth stack. Bluetooth Low Energy initiates the baseline device discovery for functions that make Apple’s ecosystem feel like “magic” — copying and pasting information from one device to another, Handoff, Find My, and unlocking one device with another.
Though Apple skillfully leverages Bluetooth Low Energy, it’s used within Apple’s walled garden and tailored to its devices. Apple’s Bluetooth stack is largely inaccessible to third-party makers, unless they conform to Apple’s ecosystem demands. However, Apple’s devices — MacBooks, iPads, iPhones, and AirPods — all sport the necessary radio and chip hardware to support LE Audio with an OTA firmware and software update. The only hindrance is Apple pulling the lever.
The accessibility gap
Channel Sounding is on the horizon, especially on the smart home front. LE Audio is already here, with many devices on the market ready to use the new Bluetooth protocol. Auracast enables multi-device audio streaming, allowing a unlimited number of receivers, including hearing aids, headphones, and speakers
Also: Apple’s $299 HomeView smart hub is here
Public spaces are integrating Auracast, including places of worship and theaters, allowing those who are hard of hearing to connect their hearing aids directly to an audio stream. The next goal is for Auracast to be available in restaurants for listening to muted TVs and in airports to hear PSAs.
If public venues have the option to implement a cheaper broadcast protocol that works with more devices, what’s the point of paying for Apple’s Made for iPhone licensing? Until Apple makes the change, its users with hearing aids will be left behind.
When will Apple catch up?
Kerry Wan/ZDNET
Given that Apple announced future Channel Sounding support, it’s clear the company recognizes it can’t be completely left out of transformative technologies that power the most basic building block of wireless connectivity forever.
However, with Channel Sounding on iOS requiring third-party makers to support Bluetooth 6.3 (only a handful of devices aside from smartphones exist with Bluetooth 6, let alone 6.1), I believe Apple is buying itself time to decide which aspects of next-gen Bluetooth it will optimize for its ecosystem.
Also: Your iPhone may support Channel Sounding
The Bluetooth Special Interest Group has told me on several occasions that it provides standardized solutions to manufacturers, but it’s up to them to decide how those solutions behave within their devices.
For a Channel Sounding example, it may be possible for Apple to allow non-HomeKit smart locks to unlock with iPhone, but you’ll have to go through an app, while a HomeKit-compatible smart lock can unlock with iPhone automatically, as soon as the iPhone is within range.
In an LE Audio context, Apple could allow iPhones, iPads, and Macs to stream to third-party headphonesreserving higher 48kHz quality for Auracast and LC3 streaming within its ecosystem
Until Channel Sounding and LE Audio are as ubiquitous in the consumer tech industry as Bluetooth itself, Apple will hold off, as illustrated by its preemptive acceptance of Channel Sounding in third-party products that are still at least five years away.
Once the company is forced to catch up to the new industry standard, Apple will likely reframe LE Audio and Channel Sounding’s capabilities on iOS as new, cutting-edge technologies, with an Apple-exclusive software stack to accompany them.
Also: Frustrated with your Bluetooth? How multipoint works
Apple’s Channel Sounding play is the same one it called when universal USB-C ports and RCS messaging were the topics of discussion. Standardized technologies are a last resort for Apple; it may be comfortable with its proprietary audio sharing and distance-finding technologies now, but we all know what’s on the horizon.
In the meantime, third-party manufacturers will mostly continue to cater to Android, since it’s already embracing the future of Bluetooth connectivity. Until Apple’s core Bluetooth APIs open up to the latest, let’s see how Android takes advantage of this wide-open lane of device interconnectivity.
