Bluetooth 6 is about to be everywhere in 2026 — What is it, how is it better, and do you really need it?

Bluetooth is a technology that most of us take for granted in everyday life, despite it delivering reliable wireless communication for billions of people across the globe. Because it's so prevalent in our favorite tech, a new Bluetooth standard being announced is pretty major news.

Indeed, the Bluetooth Special Interest Group (SIG) — the team that guides the international standards and development for Bluetooth — announced Bluetooth 6.0 in September 2024, but it remains fairly rare in 2025. That's expected to change in 2026.

Bluetooth 6.0 builds on the advancements that arrived with Bluetooth 5.0 (and its updates), adding new features like Bluetooth Channel Sounding, Decision-Based Advertising Filtering, Monitoring Advertisers, and more.

Let's dig into what these new features add to Bluetooth 6 and why you should watch out for the latest standard next time you're shopping for new wireless tech.

Bluetooth Channel Sounding improves device positioning and tracking

Bluetooth Channel Sounding is a new technology that arrives with the 6.0 standard, and it builds on the positioning features that have been a part of Bluetooth since 2010.

As the Bluetooth SIG puts it, "this introduces a new, secure, fine-ranging capability, providing centimeter-level accuracy when measuring the distance between two Bluetooth LE devices." Considering Bluetooth used to hit an accuracy of around a half meter, this new tech really dials it in.

The new tech is made possible thanks to Phase-Based Ranging (PBR) and Round-Trip Timing (RTT). Without getting too technical, these methods together allow for precise distance measurements far and near.

Bluetooth SIG says this new high-accuracy distance measurement is ideal for "Find My" scenarios where a piece of tech goes missing, and you need to track it down on a digital map. It's also perfect for digital key tech, asset tracking, peripheral positioning, and more. And because it's so precise, it should cut down on man-in-the-middle attacks by bad actors.

How can this help you in real life? Maybe you have some Bluetooth accessories on your desk that you'd like to turn on or off when you're within (or outside of) a certain distance from your laptop. Channel Sounding makes it a lot smoother.

Scanning, pairing, and switching have leveled up

There are two new key components in Bluetooth 6.0 that help with scanning, pairing, and switching devices.

Monitoring Advertisers focuses on improving discovery and connection in Bluetooth LE. Previously, Bluetooth LE could filter advertising packets — small blasts of info sent from Bluetooth devices to help identify them without requiring a full connection — to improve efficiency.

This method, however, removed the ability for the host to see if the device advertising was still in range, which often resulted in wasted power as it scanned again. Bluetooth 6.0 now uses a Host Controller Interface (HCI) to prevent such high-duty-cycle scanning, which uses less battery power and makes device switching a lot smoother.

On the other side of the coin, a new Decision-Based Advertising Filtering (DBAF) technique should speed up device pairing and switching while also making it more efficient.

ISOAL enhancements improve reliability and reduce latency

Bluetooth's Isochronous Adaptation Layer (ISOAL) allows for more data to be sent in a packet, upping transmission rates in the process.

However, the transfer increase also usually leads to higher latency. If you're watching a movie, say, this can lead to the actors on the screen appearing as though they're lip-syncing their lines.

The ISOAL enhancements in Bluetooth 6.0 aim to solve the latency issue without affecting throughput. This advancement should also help smaller devices send data back to their parent tech, while also improving things like firmware updates for wireless devices.

A new LC3plus codec aims to improve audio quality

LC3plus is a new audio codec making its debut with Bluetooth 6.0. It builds on the free LC3 codec that's been available in Bluetooth LE since 2020, adding support for 32-bit audio at 96kHz, with a latency as low as 7ms.

LC3plus has been certified Hi-Res by the Japan Audio Society, and it's evidently what you want if you're interested in lossless streaming.

Unfortunately, LC3plus requires licensing, which means it probably won't suddenly show up in all headphones.

Bluetooth 6.0: The bottom line

Bluetooth 6.0 has only started its expected multi-year journey into our favorite wireless tech, and you can find it, for now, in some cutting-edge phones like the iPhone 17 and Google Pixel 10.

It remains extremely rare in Windows laptops — be sure to let me know in the comments below if there are any Windows PCs on the market offering Bluetooth 6.0 in 2025 — and most are still using Bluetooth 5.0 (and its latest 5.4 update). The older Bluetooth standard is perfectly fine for the vast majority of users.

I'm expecting to see a lot more Bluetooth 6.0 in laptops as PC makers begin to reveal what they've cooked up for 2026. Keep an eye on announcements coming out of CES 2026 for the latest updates.

Bluetooth 6.0: FAQ

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