Your True Wireless Earbuds will be obsolete soon... 🤦🏻♂️
Recently the Bluetooth Special Interest Group (SIG) announced Bluetooth Low Energy, which is a new standard for Bluetooth transmission which will include the next generation of the good old SBC audio codec called LC3. Now, this new codec promises higher fidelity audio over SBC, but consuming much less power. Just to give you a bit of context, Bluetooth SIG is a group of companies contributing to the advancement of Bluetooth, and they have always been known to prioritise making Bluetooth more power efficient without sacrificing audio quality.
But here they’re saying that LC3 will sound better than SBC. Now, that’s crossing a really low bar, because SBC is a very lossy codec with high compression rates. You lose a lot of data during transmission, which is why with true wireless audio there are usually other codecs packaged along with SBC like AAC, aptX, LDAC, and so on. However LC3 is gonna set a new baseline for power consumption. Cause it makes it more likely that true wireless earbuds will finally ditch that charging case.
It remains to be seen though if audio quality will be that much better, because SBC sounded, not terrible but it’s not exactly good. And better than not-so-good is not exactly good either. Bluetooth Low Energy will also include a new feature called Auracast.
And this is a big one cause it’ll really take wireless audio to a whole new level. It does several things. For example, multiple headsets can connect to a single source, so Auracast lets you share what you’re listening with other wireless devices. Now, you can already do that with AirPods. Apple lets you connect up to two listeners. But Auracast could potentially connect the whole family to any device that supports BLE. And that, my friends, is a game changer. It kinda works like WiFi. Everyone needs to search for that audio source on a menu to connect to it. You could also connect with a QR code or by tapping your device on the source, like tapping a payments terminal to pay for your lasagna.
Now, I’m really excited for Auracast, however, this also means that our current crop of true wireless earbuds and headphones will be somewhat obsolete. Not entirely cause what they’re saying is that BLE is backwards compatible with older Bluetooth. So you can still go ahead and use your current crop of wireless earbuds like today, but no Auracast. Also, soon, those of us walking around with a bulge in our pockets… I’m talking about the charging case, mind you. We’ll be seen as dinosaurs because with earbuds lasting 10 hours or more on a single charge, who even needs to carry a charging case around anymore? I mean even if there is a case, there’s no need to have a battery inside, so that case will be tiny. Now, of course, all this is speculation, but this is where I predicted wireless earbuds are heading, and right now it appears to be coming true. It may not happen in the next few years so don’t go ditching your current TWS earbuds. Cause it usually takes a while for manufacturers to adopt and distribute new technology. (Editor’s note: TWS from brands like Xiaomi already supports LC3, and Sony has promised LC3 support for the LinkBuds S) But what do you think? Is it gonna make a difference to you? Will you ditch your current TWS if BLE and Auracast comes out, say, tomorrow? Let me know in the comments.
