LE Audio Bluetooth specification to be released in the first half of this year
LC3 has a lower bit rate than SBC but offers better sound quality.
Provides hearing-impaired support and audio sharing capabilities


The wireless audio market is the largest Bluetooth market, with approximately 1 billion Bluetooth audio products shipped in 2019 alone.

On the 7th, Bluetooth SIG announced the launch of LE Audio, the next-generation Bluetooth audio technology.

LE Audio not only improves Bluetooth audio performance, but also enables hearing aid support and audio sharing. Audio sharing is a new use case, offering a new way for audio to communicate with the surrounding environment, promising to provide users with a new audio experience.

In the future, Bluetooth audio will support two operating modes: LE Audio for Bluetooth Low Energy (LE) radios and Classic Audio for Bluetooth Classic radios. LE Audio will support existing Classic Audio products and use cases, while also improving performance and enabling new features.

LE Audio features a high-quality, low-power communication codec (Low Complexity Communication Codec; LC3) with low design complexity. LC3 provides high quality even at low data rates and provides flexibility to developers.

“Our LC3 performance tests have shown that LC3 can improve audio quality compared to SBC (Sub-Band Codec) even at 50 percent lower bit rates,” said Manfred Lutzky, Head of Communications at Fraunhofer IDC. “These power savings can lead to products with longer battery life and can even allow for smaller form factors due to the use of smaller batteries.”

Additionally, multi-stream audio enables the independent yet synchronized transmission of multiple audio streams between audio source devices such as smartphones and multiple audio sink devices such as wireless earphones and home theaters.

“Multi-stream audio provides an enhanced stereo imaging experience,” said Nick Hunn, CTO of Wi-Fi Consulting and head of the Bluetooth SIG Hearing Aid Working Group. “It enables seamless voice assistant services while also enabling seamless switching between multiple audio devices.”

Featuring low power, high quality, and multi-stream capabilities, LE Audio is ideal for hearing aids for the hearing impaired. Bluetooth audio has provided people around the world with wireless calling, wireless audio systems, and wireless video viewing, and it is expected that all these benefits will be available to people with hearing impairments as well.

“LE Audio is a technological revolution for hearing-impaired people who use hearing aids,” said Stefan Zimmer, Secretary General of the European Hearing Instrument Manufacturers Association (EHIMA). “In the next few years, hearing-impaired people will be able to use most new phones and TVs without any limitations.”

LE Audio offers broadcast audio for signal transmission, allowing audio devices to broadcast one or more audio streams to an unlimited number of audio devices. Broadcast audio opens new opportunities for innovation, including a new Bluetooth use case: audio sharing.

Furthermore, Bluetooth audio sharing can be utilized in a variety of settings, from narrow to wide. Personal Bluetooth audio sharing allows you to share music with family and friends nearby, while location-based audio sharing can enhance the visitor experience in venues like airports, bars, gyms, movie theaters, and conference centers.

“Location-based audio sharing could allow people to choose what audio they want to hear in public spaces, or even provide theaters with audio in multiple languages simultaneously,” said Peter Liu, Bluetooth SIG board member and Bose designer. “It could also provide support for people with hearing impairments.”

The Bluetooth technology specifications for LE Audio are expected to be released in the first half of 2020.