Bluetooth 6 Officially Launched: What New Features Should You Know?

Bluetooth Special Interest Group (SIG) has officially released Bluetooth 6.0 specifications (photo: x @tatha_gautama).

JAKARTA - Bluetooth Special Interest Group (SIG) has officially released Bluetooth 6.0 specifications, and the devices supporting it are expected to be on the market soon. Unlike the previous generation which often only brings changes to the numbers and technical terms, Bluetooth 6.0 offers a number of real changes that consumers can feel directly.

One of the main innovations in Bluetooth 6 is the Channel Sounding feature, which provides better spatial awareness for Bluetooth connections. This feature allows the device to detect each other's positions with an accuracy close to one centimeter, making Bluetooth connections more stable and fast.

Bluetooth 6 also introduces six other new sets of features, including:

Decision-Based Advertising Filtering: Reduce data loss and increase speed by allowing the device to decide which data plans to search for in the secondary channel, saving battery energy.

Monitoring Advertisers: Allows the device to filter duplicate data packets from the sender device, thereby reducing latency and increasing energy efficiency.

Isochronous Adaptation Layer Enhancement: Allowing larger data breakdown to become a smaller package for better transfer speeds, while reducing latency.

Space Update Frame: Adjusting the time between data plans to improve connection stability.

Bluetooth Channel Sounding uses two distance measurement methods: Phase-Based Ranking (PBR) and Round Trip Timing (RTT), which work together to provide accurate distance measurements of up to 150 meters. Additional security features are also applied to prevent man-in-the-middle fraud and attack.

Currently, no device has been announced to support Bluetooth 6. However, the Snapdragon 8 Elite chipset supports this technology, so it is hoped that device manufacturers will soon integrate Bluetooth 6 into their products. With these various improvements, Bluetooth 6 is expected to be able to improve user experience on various devices, including digital keys, Find My networks, and other Bluetooth devices.