Bluetooth is getting better and remains not particularly secure

In 1998, the then mobile phone market leader Nokia and the leading laptop manufacturers at the time, Toshiba and IBM, also got on board and finally helped wireless technology achieve its breakthrough. Bluetooth radio can be used to transmit voice and music wirelessly, unlock cars from several meters away, transfer data and much more.

The Bluetooth Special Interest Group, which was founded in February 1998 as a standardization body, has now presented a completely new architecture at the CES technology trade fair that is intended to "enable the next 20 years of audio innovations".

The core of the innovation is a new audio format called "Low Complexity Communication Codec" (LC3). LC3 simultaneously reduces power consumption and increases audio quality. At the moment, the lowest common denominator for Bluetooth audio is the relatively old and relatively poor SBC codec. To make audio transmissions via SBC sound good, the bit rate would have to be increased, but this would drive up power consumption.

Better sound

The improved compression methods in the new LC3 format, which were developed by the German Fraunhofer Institute for Integrated Circuits IIS and others, ensure that audio transmissions sound better than the old format with high bit rates, even at low bit rates. Manufacturers can now use the power-saving potential to extend the running times of the devices or install smaller batteries for the same running time.

The new standard will be launched on the market under the brand name "Bluetooth LE Audio" - the abbreviation LE stands for "Low Energy". The previous standard is called "Bluetooth Classic Audio" and ensures that older devices such as car radios and portable speakers are also supported.

Completely new applications can now be developed on the basis of "LE Audio". In future, hearing aids will be able to support Bluetooth. This could be used to transmit phone calls from a smartphone directly to hearing aids - or audio signals from a television. The new generation of the Bluetooth wireless standard will also bring multiple connections and new transmission options. Bluetooth devices will be able to establish audio connections to more than one headphone or speaker.

Multistream audio possible

With the new technology, Bluetooth will also natively support multistream audio in the future. This means that wireless earbuds will be able to receive their own independent signal from a phone. Up to now, the phone usually sends the signal to one of the two earbuds, which then passes the signal on to the other. This saves the transmitter in the earbuds, which will also benefit battery life.

Multistream will also enable multiple users to share Bluetooth audio from the same source. For example, patients in a waiting room or air travelers at the gate could dial in to the audio signal from a TV that has been running silently up to now.

Apple already supports audio sharing with its popular AirPods, but only two people can share the signal. This restriction will no longer apply in future. This means that music or voice can be transmitted to a theoretically unlimited number of devices. For example, from a smartphone to all friends in the vicinity.

In museums or other public institutions, it is possible to reach visitors with "broadcast audio". The audio streams can either be broadcast publicly like a small radio station or as a private stream protected by a password - similar to a WLAN network.

Advances in audio transmission will further strengthen the position of Bluetooth. "Ultimately, there will only be three wireless standards: Mobile radio, WIFI and Bluetooth," Ken Kolderup from the Bluetooth SIG is certain. Infrared transmission, DECT for cordless phones and smart home wireless technologies such as Zigbee will slowly disappear.

Significant security gaps

However, the success story of Bluetooth has not only seen highs, but also lows. For example, many users still find pairing Bluetooth devices very fiddly. Some manufacturers try to avoid this pitfall by switching off all security features to enable easy pairing.

But even if these functions are not disabled, there is still a risk. At the recent 36C3 congress of the Chaos Computer Club in Leipzig, Darmstadt-based security researcher Jiska Classen pointed out significant security vulnerabilities in Bluetooth applications.

It is worrying that Bluetooth is always active due to audio applications on smartphones or usage scenarios in the Internet of Things (IoT). This means that anyone can connect to it at any time, even if it is only running in the background, the researcher from the Secure Mobile Networking Lab (SEEMOO) at Darmstadt University of Technology told the news agency Dpa.

"The convenience of Bluetooth harbors great potential for attacks," warned Classen. The security of Bluetooth depends heavily on the security of the chip, and this must receive firmware updates, which the manufacturers only provide very slowly and not at all for older devices. "For a smartphone, old in this case often means two to three years old."

Bluetooth software in fitness trackers or other networked devices is also often insecure. The researcher recommended that 36C3 visitors should rely on extensively secured WLAN installations or IT systems that do not have an interface for network communication. She herself might write texts on an ancient Apple PowerBook, which has no Bluetooth interface at all. (SDA)