Samsung Galaxy S8 begins era of better Bluetooth.
Bluetooth 5 short-range networks send data twice as fast or four times as far. Samsung’s new flagship phone is the first to support it.
You’re more likely to buy Samsung’s new Galaxy S8 phone for its screen, processor or camera, but owners will get another significant technology improvement, the new Bluetooth 5 generation of the wireless network technology.
If you’re unfamiliar, Bluetooth 5 is a fairly major upgrade from Bluetooth 4.0. It has double the bandwidth speed (2 Mb/s), 4x the range, and support for long-range low energy Bluetooth connections.
That extra bandwidth is required for the Galaxy S8’s “Dual audio” feature. This allows the phone to stream audio to two Bluetooth headsets or speakers at the same time. You can also adjust the volume for each device independently.
The technology is a big deal in consumer technology, and its low-power advantages should make it a bigger one, according to ABI Research. Bluetooth 5 should help propel the technology to new heights, lifting device shipments by 500 million each year until 5 billion Bluetooth devices are sold in 2021, the research firm forecasts.
You don’t need to worry about replacing your current Bluetooth devices though, as Bluetooth 5 is backwards compatible. The low-energy version of the format will work with any Bluetooth device running version 4.0 – 4.2 and that also has a low-energy option. However to take full advantage of the new services Bluetooth 5 provides, you will need to make sure your kit is up to date.