Technologies

Bluetooth 6.0: What You Need to Know About the Future of Wireless Headphones

Bluetooth got a major upgrade, and it’s already showing up in phones and headphones. Here’s what to expect and what we’re still waiting for.

The Bluetooth Special Interest Group announced version 6.0 of the near-ubiquitous wireless technology in Sept. 2024, adding some major new features that aim to improve Bluetooth’s reliability, security, smoothness and efficiency. It might even get you a greater range between your headphones and phone, as well as longer battery life.

We’re finally seeing devices arrive with Bluetooth 6.0, including phones from Apple and Google, as well as headphones and earbuds. Here’s what you need to know about Bluetooth 6.0 and how it will affect wireless connectivity for years to come.

Main improvements of Bluetooth 6.0

Latency

Latency is the time between an audio signal being sent and when you actually hear it. The higher the latency, the more annoying it can be — think of when the sound lags behind the video in movies or games. Most Bluetooth (5.0 and newer) devices have latency somewhere between 50 to 100 milliseconds, depending on gear and configuration, which is noticeable to most people.

Bluetooth 6.0’s new isochronous adaptive layer, or ISOAL, allows devices to break up audio data into smaller chunks for quicker processing. In theory, this has the potential to reduce latency, and it’s possible that we might see latency under 10 milliseconds under ideal conditions, such as close range, no obstacles and no interference.

We expect that under real-world conditions, the majority of setups will operate at a latency of around 20 milliseconds, which would still represent a significant improvement over Bluetooth 5.x.

Location tracking and security

One of the new spec’s most buzzworthy features is called Channel Sounding, which provides a significant improvement in the accuracy of device location tracking. It relies on a back-and-forth exchange of data packets between connected devices and a combination of time stamps and frequency analysis, rather than the old, less accurate method of just measuring relative signal strength.

Channel Sounding is a boon for Apple’s Find My and its Google and Samsung equivalents, offering location accuracy down to approximately 10 centimeters, along with improved resistance to obstacles and interference. It also enables enhanced security for Bluetooth lock systems using a combination of encryption, randomization and location cross-referencing to ensure some random person isn’t unlocking your car or front door.

Power efficiency and pairing speed

The same features that reduce latency also help with power efficiency: Everything behaves intelligently to use more power for keeping audio and video in sync for things like gaming, and less power for less intensive applications like audiobooks. This flexibility is especially crucial for wireless earbuds, which require the most effective power management due to their compact size.

The process of scanning for nearby Bluetooth devices is also being upgraded, with decision-based advertiser filtering and monitoring. Advertising in this case doesn’t refer to selling you products. Basically, it’s a set of headphones broadcasting, «I’m a headset, and I’m nearby and ready to connect.»

Instead of constantly shouting, «Is anyone there?!» to see if there’s anything nearby to connect to, Bluetooth 6.0 devices will keep track when previously paired devices go in and out of range. This should save precious battery life, make pairing quicker and provide smoother multipoint switching.

What Bluetooth 6.0 doesn’t do

Improved Bluetooth sound quality (maybe)

Were you waiting for reliable, wireless lossless audio transmission from your phone to your headphones? Still not there yet.

Astute readers who note that CD-quality lossless audio transmission requires 1.4Mbps of throughput speed may wonder why Bluetooth 6.0’s theoretical 3Mbps isn’t enough. It’s because much of Bluetooth’s bandwidth is taken up by overhead — a bunch of ancillary data that’s required for secure Bluetooth connections that has nothing to do with audio. While there are some codecs that promise high-quality wireless audio, lossless CD-quality audio remains elusive.

Bluetooth 6.0 does bring the optional long-discussed LC3plus codec, which can transmit up to 24-bit and 96kHz audio. However, unlike «regular» LC3, this is an optional codec that has a separate licensing fee. That means there will be limited adoption compared to the more popular codecs. Remember, both your device and headphones must be compatible with LC3plus for it to work. How well it works and whether it can reliably transmit 24/96 in the real world remain to be seen.

A future incremental revision of Bluetooth 6.0 promises to add a high-data-throughput feature that will open up usable bandwidth for lossless streaming, potentially by using other frequency bands besides the crowded 2.4GHz band, to achieve speeds of up to 7.5Mbps. That should provide enough headroom to enable high-res audio streams, though it’s unclear if manufacturers will adopt the right codecs for lossless Bluetooth audio via headphones. Given past and current adoption rates for different Bluetooth codecs, it is unlikely to be Apple, and this technology will instead first find its way into lesser-known Android phones.

Where to find Bluetooth 6.0 right now

If you want to get a head start on Bluetooth 6.0 compatibility, there are a handful of devices already shipping (though not all of these are available in the US).

Google Pixel 10
iPhone 17
Sony Xperia 1 VII
Xiaomi 16
Edifier Doo Ace 2 headphones
Earfun Air Pro 4 Plus true wireless earbuds

Technologies

Google, Meta and Amazon Join Global Pact to Fight Rising Online Scams

The companies will share fraud intelligence and coordinate responses as AI makes scams faster, cheaper and harder to detect.

Modern online scams operate across multiple platforms, perhaps spanning social media, messaging apps, email and online marketplaces. Google, Meta and Amazon are among 11 tech, retail and payments companies that have signed a new agreement to combat online scams by sharing threat intelligence across platforms, Axios first reported Monday.

The initiative, called the Industry Accord Against Online Scams & Fraud, is designed to improve how companies detect and respond to fraud that spans multiple services. Participants say they will exchange signals, such as scam-linked accounts and fraudulent domains, and coordinate enforcement actions.

By sharing intelligence in near real time, companies hope to identify these scams earlier and stop them before they spread.

The effort reflects how modern scams operate. A victim might encounter a fake celebrity investment ad on social media, move to a messaging app where the scammer builds trust, then faces prompts to send money through a fraudulent website, payment app or crypto wallet — spanning multiple companies’ ecosystems.

Google said it now blocks hundreds of millions of scam-related results every day using AI, underscoring how both attackers and defenders are increasingly relying on the same technology. Meta removed more than 159 million scam ads in 2025 and is expanding AI tools to detect impersonation and warn users.

Online scams are growing rapidly, in part because generative AI has lowered the barrier to entry. AI can be used not only to produce realistic phishing emails but also to clone voices and deepfake videos that impersonate executives, public figures and even family members.

The agreement is voluntary and doesn’t create new legal obligations, but it comes after regulators’ increased pressure on tech platforms to address fraud more aggressively. The companies say they will begin building frameworks for reporting and intelligence-sharing, though it’s not yet clear how quickly those systems will be deployed or how effective they will be in practice.

Technologies

Today’s NYT Mini Crossword Answers for Wednesday, March 18

Here are the answers for The New York Times Mini Crossword for March 18.

Looking for the most recent Mini Crossword answer? Click here for today’s Mini Crossword hints, as well as our daily answers and hints for The New York Times Wordle, Strands, Connections and Connections: Sports Edition puzzles.

Need some help with today’s Mini Crossword? I thought it was a fairly easy one, but read on for all the answers. And if you could use some hints and guidance for daily solving, check out our Mini Crossword tips.

If you’re looking for today’s Wordle, Connections, Connections: Sports Edition and Strands answers, you can visit CNET’s NYT puzzle hints page.

Read more: Tips and Tricks for Solving The New York Times Mini Crossword

Let’s get to those Mini Crossword clues and answers.

Mini across clues and answers

1A clue: Word before «card,» flood» or «photography»
Answer: FLASH

6A clue: Joust weapon
Answer: LANCE

7A clue: Brain, heart or lungs
Answer: ORGAN

8A clue: «Frozen» reindeer
Answer: SVEN

9A clue: What can be found on frozen roads or frozen margaritas
Answer: SALT

Mini down clues and answers

1D clue: Follow a dentist’s recommendation
Answer: FLOSS

2D clue: Baby bug
Answer: LARVA

3D clue: Shape made in the snow
Answer: ANGEL

4D clue: Very little
Answer: SCANT

5D clue: Egg layer
Answer: HEN

Technologies

Amazon Speeds Up Delivery Even More With 1- and 3-Hour Options

The retailer says the one-hour option is available in hundreds of cities, with discounted shipping for Prime members.

Same-day delivery apparently isn’t fast enough for some Amazon shoppers. The retail giant said on Tuesday it’s adding new shipping options that will get products to front doors within a one- or three-hour window.

The company said in its announcement that the one-hour option is available in hundreds of cities across the US, while the three-hour option is now live in more than 2,000 areas. Amazon’s web page at amazon.com/getitfast shows whether those options are available to shoppers for their location. More than 90,000 products will be available for those shipping windows, the company said.

For those who can’t get those services (including the author of this post, who lives between Austin and San Antonio in Texas), a message will display: «3-hour delivery is currently unavailable. Check back at a later time or shop products with Same-Day delivery below.»

Pricing for the faster delivery options is not cheap: It’ll cost you $20 for one-hour delivery and $15 for three-hour delivery for those without an Amazon Prime account, or $10 and $5 for customers who subscribe to Prime.

Last year, the company rolled out faster Amazon delivery options to 4,000 additional areas.

In a video of the podcast Learn and Be Curious with Doug Herrington, hosted by Amazon’s CEO of worldwide stores, Kandace Kapps, the director of the company’s same-day strategy team, spoke in more detail about the challenges of fast shipping. Kapps discussed shifts in customer buying habits over the last few years, such as more people buying household essentials like toilet paper on Amazon.

She said that Amazon can deliver so quickly by placing same-day delivery hubs close to customers in metro areas and by getting products ready to ship within 15 minutes, aided by warehouse robots.

«I think customers are going to continue to get magically surprised by how fast we can deliver to their doorstop,» Kapps said.

Herrington said fast shipping increases sales: «When we speed up the service, the probability that somebody buys a product from us goes up.»

Other retailers, including Walmart, have been adding same-day delivery options or exploring other ways to speed up shipping times to compete with Amazon.

Removing buyers’ moments of hesitation

Part of Amazon’s strategy, which has involved a massive buildout of locations, deployment of thousands of trucks, deals with other delivery services and investment in logistics software, is actually pretty simple: being there when people need last-minute items or make impulse buys.

«It’s about removing the last moment where you would’ve reconsidered the purchase,» said Stephanie Carls, retail insights expert at coupon and promotional-code website RetailMeNot, a sibling site of CNET. «It changes how you shop, not just how fast you get things.»

Carls said that Amazon’s super-fast delivery is removing the timeframe when people might change their minds about a purchase.

«There used to be a gap between deciding to buy something and actually having it. That’s when you’d price check, rethink it, or decide you didn’t need it after all,» she said. «This closes that gap.»

The retail expert said that competitors, including Walmart and Target, have been speeding up delivery times in some markets. Still, they’re not matching Amazon’s scale or product range at those speeds or levels of consistency.

«And that’s what starts to make everyone else feel slow,» Carls said. «Amazon’s advantage is how tightly connected its technology, inventory and delivery networks are, which makes this level of speed more repeatable.»