The Bluetooth Special Interest Group (Bluetooth SIG) has unveiled the new core specification for Bluetooth 6.0, and it brings with it a number of features, one of the most potentially important being Bluetooth Channel Sounding, a technology that will bring true distance awareness to the short-range wireless technology standard.
Bluetooth Channel Sounding not only adds more precise finding capabilities to the technology but also makes it much more secure.
Also: I found the AirTags that Android users have been waiting for
How precise is it? Digging through the documents the best I’ve currently come up with is “centimeter-level accuracy over considerable distances,” where those considerable distances are in the region of “up to about 150 meters” before the measurements get ambiguous.
But precision finding of things — things that people may be carrying — brings with it privacy concerns, which is why Bluetooth Channel Sounding has built-in security for authentication of device pairing.
Apple currently relies on ultra-wideband technology for its precision finding technology for the iPhone, Apple Watch, and AirPods, but Android tags, such as those by Chipolo, still rely on Bluetooth. Since UWB is still in its infancy as far as adoption goes, and Bluetooth is present on all new handsets, this could make quite an impact.
Another question is whether Apple will adopt this method for precision finding as a replacement to UWB that it currently uses. That’s most definitely a wait and see.
Other improvements headed to Bluetooth 6.0 include:
- Decision-Based Advertising Filtering: This feature enhances scanning efficiency by allowing a device to decide whether to scan secondary channels based on the content of packets received on primary advertising channels.
- Monitoring Advertisers: A new feature that uses Host Controller Interface (HCI) events to notify the host when a device of interest enters or exits the range.
- ISOAL Enhancement: The Isochronous Adaptation Layer (ISOAL) in Bluetooth Core Specification 6.0 introduces a new framing mode that reduces latency and improves reliability for latency-sensitive use cases.
- LL Extended Feature Set: This enhancement supports a larger number of features, reflecting the growing sophistication and versatility of Bluetooth Low Energy (LE).
- Frame Space Update: In Bluetooth 6.0, the spacing of frames in connections or connected isochronous streams is now negotiable, allowing for flexibility in timing beyond the previous 150 µs standard.
There’s no word on when Bluetooth 6.0 will make its way into new devices, but I’d say it will be at least a year until we start seeing smartphones support Bluetooth 6.0.
