The Bluetooth Special Interest Group (SIG), the trade association that oversees Bluetooth® technology, today announced the adoption of Bluetooth® High Data Throughput (HDT), the next major milestone in the evolution of Bluetooth technology, introducing faster data transfer, increased capacity, better energy efficiency, and enhanced reliability. By significantly expanding the Bluetooth performance envelope, Bluetooth HDT establishes the foundation for the next generation of wireless experiences and continued innovation across the global Bluetooth ecosystem.

“As the world’s most widely used wireless standard, Bluetooth technology has continually evolved to meet the growing demands of an increasingly connected world,” said Neville Meijers, CEO of the Bluetooth SIG. “The Bluetooth SIG member community has once again risen to the challenge. Bluetooth HDT brings a new level of performance to Bluetooth technology, expanding the role it can play across consumer, commercial, and industrial markets and creating a powerful foundation for the next generation of wireless innovation.”

Bluetooth HDT introduces a new physical layer (PHY) with robust modulation schemes that allow Bluetooth LE devices to communicate more efficiently and carry significantly more information over the Bluetooth link. Bluetooth HDT increases the maximum supported bit rate to 7.5 Mbps, nearly four times that of the Bluetooth LE 2M PHY.

Advancing Bluetooth® performance across four dimensions

Keeping pace with the growing demands of wireless connectivity requires more than speed alone. It requires the capacity to communicate larger volumes of information with greater efficiency and reliability. More than a speed enhancement, Bluetooth High Data Throughput enables Bluetooth devices to transfer more data, use wireless resources more efficiently, and perform more reliably across a broader range of applications and environments. The benefits include:

  • Faster data transfer: Bluetooth HDT delivers nearly four times the previous maximum Bluetooth throughput, enabling devices to transfer substantially more information in the same amount of time. As applications become increasingly data-intensive, faster data movement supports more responsive wireless interactions, shorter transfer times, faster synchronization and file movement, and improved user experiences.

  • Increased capacity: By improving spectral efficiency, Bluetooth HDT creates more room for devices to exchange more data within available wireless resources and enables enhanced support for increasingly sophisticated and data-intensive applications.

  • Better energy efficiency: Bluetooth HDT moves more data in less time, allowing the radio to spend less time actively transmitting and more time in lower-power states, helping devices deliver higher levels of performance while using energy more efficiently.

  • Enhanced reliability: Bluetooth HDT improves communication robustness and resilience, helping devices maintain more consistent wireless performance across a broader and more demanding range of operating environments.

“The significance of Bluetooth® High Data Throughput goes well beyond speed. By advancing data throughput, capacity, energy efficiency, and reliability together, Bluetooth HDT gives developers and product makers a stronger foundation for building more capable products and richer wireless experiences,” said Joonsuk Kim, executive vice president and head of S.LSI CP development at Samsung Electronics. “Together, these advancements enable more sophisticated applications, new product opportunities, and continued Bluetooth ecosystem growth.”

Opening new possibilities for Bluetooth® applications

Expected to be released in 2027, the first flagship application for Bluetooth® High Data Throughput will be standardized premium wireless audio. With demand for higher-quality wireless listening experiences increasing, Bluetooth HDT provides the capacity, efficiency, and wireless performance needed to deliver standardized lossless and high-resolution audio, while supporting advances in multi-channel surround sound, spatial audio, and other elevated Bluetooth audio experiences.

The same performance improvements that enable richer audio experiences can also benefit a growing range of Bluetooth applications, including:

  • Immersive and spatial computing: With extended reality (XR), spatial computing, and other immersive applications continuing to evolve, Bluetooth HDT enables more responsive experiences and increasingly complex device interactions, introducing new possibilities for innovation across this rapidly expanding application space.

  • AI-enabled devices: With more data being generated, processed, and exchanged at the edge, Bluetooth HDT provides the foundation to support increasingly intelligent, context-aware, and adaptive AI-enabled experiences.

  • Commercial and industrial solutions: Reliance on wireless communication continues to grow across commercial and industrial environments. Bluetooth HDT delivers the capacity and reliability needed to enable more advanced automation, monitoring, and operational systems.

  • Everyday connected devices: From wearables and health and fitness devices to smart home products, peripherals, and other connected devices, billions of products rely on Bluetooth technology to make everyday connected experiences possible. Bluetooth HDT enables common data exchanges to happen faster, reducing wait times and helping keep data transfer delays from getting in the way of the connected experience.

“By making it significantly faster to move large amounts of data, Bluetooth® High Data Throughput creates new possibilities for Bluetooth applications,” said Øyvind Strøm, executive vice president of the short-range business unit at Nordic Semiconductor. “Imagine a smartwatch that syncs hours’ worth of sensor-rich training data to your phone in seconds, smart glasses that deliver richer AI experiences by offloading data for processing, or a smart home product that completes a firmware update with virtually no user-visible downtime. Bluetooth HDT paves the way for more sophisticated, data-intensive Bluetooth applications, and we can’t wait to see what our customers and the Bluetooth community build next.”

Bluetooth® High Data Throughput (HDT) is an optional feature in the recently adopted Bluetooth Core 7.0. For more information about Bluetooth HDT, visit bluetooth.com/HDT.

About the Bluetooth SIG

The Bluetooth Special Interest Group (SIG) is the international standards development organization responsible for advancing, protecting, and promoting Bluetooth® technology, the global standard for connection. With over 43,000 member companies, we are a community of the world’s most inventive people collaborating to fulfill the essential need to connect. Driven by a shared vision of creating a better world through connection, our members ship over 5 billion Bluetooth enabled products each year that make our lives safer, healthier, and more joyful, while helping businesses and industries become more efficient, sustainable, and productive. For more information about the Bluetooth SIG and Bluetooth technology, please visit www.bluetooth.com.

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