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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).

Technologies

Fitbit Launches Luffu, AI-Powered Health Tracking for the Whole Family

Soon, you may be able to access every family member’s health data in one place.

If you’ve ever wanted a way to keep all of your family’s health records in place, Fitbit may have come up with a solution. Fitbit, well-known for its fitness wearables, announced the launch of its own health care system on Wednesday.  

Luffu, which translates to the Old English word for «love,» uses AI to create what it calls an «intelligent family care system.» The platform allows family members to share all their health information through an app.

It’s unclear when Luffu will be officially available, but you can sign up for the waitlist to get access to the limited public beta. Pricing or other details have not been announced.

Luffu will allow families to keep track of everyone’s doctor’s appointments, test results, vaccine records, medications, symptoms, diet and more. The platform uses AI to learn your family’s health history and patterns, and to alert you to any changes that should be addressed, such as missed medications or abnormal vitals. The AI function organizes the data submitted into the system. The app will also connect to third-party apps and wearables, such as the Fitbit.

Luffu is meant to lighten the mental load of family care by organizing all this health data in one place, its co-founder said.

«I was caring for my parents from across the country, trying to piece together my mom’s health care across various portals and providers, with a language barrier that made it hard to get a complete, timely context from her about doctor visits,» said Luffu co-founder James Park.

Luffu will include alerts and a space to log health and medication information via voice, text, photos, and other health portals and devices. The key medical information can be shared across the platform with spouses, caregivers and parents.

A representative for Fitbit did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

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Technologies

These New AI Transcription Models Are Built for Speed and Privacy

Mistral AI’s new Voxtral Mini Transcribe 2 and Voxtral Realtime are intended to run on your device, meaning your conversations never find their way to a data center.

Sometimes you want to transcribe something, but don’t want it to be hanging out on the internet for any hacker to see. Maybe it’s a conversation with your doctor or lawyer. Maybe you’re a journalist, and it’s a sensitive interview. Privacy and control are important.

That desire for privacy is one reason the French developer Mistral AI built its latest transcription models to be small enough to run on devices. They can run on your phone, on your laptop or in the cloud.

Voxtral Mini Transcribe 2, one of the new models announced Wednesday, is «super, super small,» Pierre Stock, Mistral’s vice president of science operations, told me. Another new model, Voxtral Realtime, can do the same thing but live, like closed captioning. 

Privacy is not the only reason the company wanted to build small open-source models. By running right on the device you’re using, these models can work faster. No more waiting on files to find their way through the internet to a data center and back. 

«What you want is the transcription to happen super, super close to you,» Stock said. «And the closest we can find to you is any edge device, so a laptop, a phone, a wearable like a smartwatch, for instance.»

The low latency (read: high speed) is especially important for real-time transcription. The Voxtral Realtime model can generate with a latency of less than 200 milliseconds, Stock said. It can transcribe a speaker’s words about as quickly as you can read them. No more waiting two or three seconds for the closed captioning to catch up.

The Voxtral Realtime model is available through Mistral’s API and on Hugging Face, along with a demo where you can try it out.

In some brief testing, I found it generated fairly quickly (although not as fast as you’d expect if it were on device) and managed to capture what I said accurately in English with a little bit of Spanish mixed in. It’s capable of handling 13 languages right now, according to Mistral. 

Voxtral Mini Transcribe 2 is also available through the company’s API, or you can play around with it in Mistral’s AI Studio. I used the model to transcribe my interview with Stock.

I found it to be quick and pretty reliable, although it struggled with proper names like Mistral AI (which it called Mr. Lay Eye) and Voxtral (VoxTroll). Yes, the AI model got its own name wrong. But Stock said users can customize the model to understand certain words, names and jargon better if they’re using it for specific tasks.

The challenge of building small, fast AI models is that they also have to be accurate, Stock said. The company touted the models’ performance on benchmarks showing improved error rates compared to competitors. 

«It’s not enough to say, OK, I’ll make a small model,» Stock said. «What you need is a small model that has the same quality as larger models, right?»

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Technologies

Don’t Miss Out on Xbox Game Pass Ultimate for $25 Per Month

With this StackSocial offer, you’re getting access to hundreds of games for either $25 for one month or $74 for three months.

Right now at StackSocial, you can get a three-month membership for just $74, which brings each month to $25. Normally $30 per month, you can also opt for a single-month plan for $25. I’ve been following Xbox Game Pass pricing for a while, so this is a great deal. Just keep in mind, once you get your download code via email, the purchase cannot be changed or returned. 

Xbox Game Pass Ultimate lets you access games not only on your console but also on a PC or mobile device. Basically, you can play what you want, when you want, where you want. Game Pass adds new games all the time, with not only older titles making their way to the service but also brand-new Xbox games, including releases from Microsoft’s own studios on the day of release.

Hey, did you know? CNET Deals texts are free, easy and save you money.

Xbox Game Pass Ultimate is a brilliant way to save cash while playing fantastic games, including Black Ops 6, Halo: Infinite, Hellblade 2, Starfield and tons more. While the lineup changes each month, more than 500 games are available to play. It’s the closest thing to a Netflix for games.

Please note that Microsoft allows prepayment for up to 36 months of access, so 12 is the maximum number of subscriptions you should purchase. You can check out our full roundup of all the best Xbox deals for more savings on games and accessories.

Why this deal matters 

The last time we saw the Game Pass subscription discounted was around the holiday season. Right now, you can get access to hundreds of games for essentially the price of one. Whether you choose the one- or three-month option, the price is the same at $25 per month. Since most games aren’t usually priced below $25, this is a steal. 

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