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Bluetooth 5.0: What’s Different, and Why it Matters

Bluetooth 5.0 is the latest version of the Bluetooth wireless communication standard. It’s commonly used for wireless headphones and other audio hardware, as well as wireless keyboards, mice, and game controllers. Bluetooth is also used for communication between various smart home and Internet of Things (IoT) devices.

A new version of the Bluetooth standard means various improvements, but only when used with compatible peripherals. In other words, you won’t see any immediate benefit from upgrading to a phone with Bluetooth 5.0 if all your Bluetooth accessories were designed for an older version of Bluetooth. Bluetooth is backwards compatible, however, so you can continue using your existing Bluetooth 4.2 and older devices with a Bluetooth 5.0 phone. And, when you buy new Bluetooth 5.0-enabled peripherals, they’ll work better thanks to your Bluetooth 5.0 phone.

Bluetooth Low Energy for Wireless Headphones (and More)

Importantly, all the improvements being made to Bluetooth are to Bluetooth Low Energy specification, which was introduced back with Bluetooth 4.0, and not to the classic Bluetooth radio that uses more power. Bluetooth Low Energy is designed to reduce the energy usage of Bluetooth peripherals. It was originally used for wearables, beacons, and other low-power devices, but had some serious restrictions.

For example, wireless headphones couldn’t communicate over Bluetooth Low Energy, so they had to use the more power-hungry Bluetooth classic standard instead. With Bluetooth 5.0, all audio devices communicate over Bluetooth Low Energy, which means reduced power usage and longer battery life. Many more types of devices will be able to communicate over Bluetooth Low Energy in the future.

Notably, Apple’s AirPods don’t use Bluetooth 5.0. They use Bluetooth 4.2 and the special Apple W1 chip for an improved connection. On Android, Bluetooth 5.0 should help make Bluetooth headphones something you’d want to use.

Bluetooth 5.0 also enables a cool new feature that allows you to play audio on two connected devices at the same time. In other words, you could have two pairs of wireless headphones connected to your phone, and them stream audio to both of them at once, all via standard Bluetooth. Or you could play audio on two different speakers in different rooms. You could even stream two different audio sources to two different audio devices at the same time, so two people could be listening to two different pieces of music, but streaming from the same phone.

Bluetooth 5.0’s primary benefits are improved speed and greater range.

In other words, it’s faster and can operate over greater distances than older versions of Bluetooth.

The official Bluetooth marketing material from the Bluetooth standard organization advertises that Bluetooth 5.0 has four times the range, two times the speed, and eight times the broadcasting message capacity of older versions of Bluetooth. Again, these improvements apply to Bluetooth Low Energy, ensuring devices can take advantage of them while saving power.

With Bluetooth 5.0, devices can use data transfer speeds of up to 2 Mbps, which is double what Bluetooth 4.2 supports. Devices can also communicate over distances of up to 800 feet (or 240 meters), which is four times the 200 feet (or 60 meters) allowed by Bluetooth 4.2. However, walls and other obstacles will weaken the signal, as they do with Wi-Fi.

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