The first wireless devices with Bluetooth 6.1 are starting to trickle out. What does this next generational leap mean for Bluetooth, and what will you notice as a user?
Do you have wireless headphones or a smartwatch on your wrist? Then you use Bluetooth every day. Bluetooth is a widely supported technology that enables wireless connections between devices. Its application goes far beyond electronics: it also plays a supporting role in modern healthcare, manufacturing, and IoT.
This year, Bluetooth is facing a new generational leap. In May 2025, the Bluetooth Special Interest Group (SIG), which oversees the protocol’s development, published the latest Bluetooth 6.1 standard, focusing on privacy and energy efficiency. But what exactly changes for you as an IT user? We guide you through the different Bluetooth versions and what each new release has contributed to wireless connectivity.
Wireless connections
Bluetooth is a technology and standard that enables wireless communication between devices without the need for a physical connection. The first standard was born in 1998. Via Bluetooth, you can connect and use peripherals such as mice, keyboards, and headphones on your PC, or have your computer communicate with a printer. The technology also enables the exchange of files and data.
The connection works via short-range radio waves over the 2.4 GHz frequency band, reserved for industrial, medical, and scientific use. Bluetooth has to share this with Wi-Fi, but that’s where the similarities end. Wi-Fi is intended to connect devices to a network, while Bluetooth links devices directly to each other. To avoid potential interference, Bluetooth can switch between 79 different channels.
The Bluetooth protocol ensures that devices can find and trust each other automatically. The technology establishes an encrypted connection to exchange data between devices. Bluetooth is typically used to connect devices over short distances, between one and ten meters, but the theoretical range is several hundred meters. The connection is not limited to one device: you can use a wireless mouse, keyboard, and headphones on your PC simultaneously.
Today, two forms of Bluetooth are common. ‘Classic’ Bluetooth (Bluetooth Basic Rate/Enhanced Data Rate) allows for higher data speeds, but most manufacturers today choose the newer Bluetooth Low Energy (LE) because of its lower power consumption and higher quality.
Applications in IoT, industry, and healthcare
Today, Bluetooth is an indispensable part of our daily lives. More and more IT users, both private and professional, prefer the convenience of wireless connections over a desk full of cables. For many people, Bluetooth is synonymous with wireless gadgets, but the social impact of the technology reaches much further.
For example, Bluetooth is one of the invisible forces behind the Internet of Things (IoT). This can range from smart devices found in living rooms to industrial machines. In an industrial context, Bluetooth is used to monitor machines remotely to determine when maintenance is needed. Modern medical equipment also often relies on Bluetooth, which provides a more energy-efficient alternative to other wireless connectivity technologies for these applications.
Another interesting application is Bluetooth ‘beacons’. These are small micro-controllers that use Bluetooth LE signals to communicate with nearby devices. Beacons have various application possibilities. Navigation apps rely on beacons to compensate for the loss of GPS signals, such as in tunnels, and smart trackers use them to reveal the location of your keys to your smartphone. They are also useful in an industrial context for controlling drones and robots in indoor spaces.
How secure is Bluetooth?
The increasingly wide adoption of Bluetooth by a broader range of devices sometimes raises legitimate questions about security. Every connected device increases the potential attack surface for hackers, and examples of poorly secured ‘smart’ devices are legion. Bluetooth is also not without risk: if insufficiently secured, it can be used as a vector for phishing, spying, or DDoS attacks, just like any wireless technology.
Different levels of security are distinguished. The simplest form of security is the principle of ‘pairing’: the first time a device seeks a connection, the user must manually confirm it. Most devices have implemented this principle. You can further secure pairing with authentication so that the user has to think and act twice to approve a request.
Communication between devices can be intercepted via ‘man-in-the-middle’ attacks. To avoid this, various security principles are built into the Bluetooth protocol, from classic encryption to assigning unique ‘signatures’ to data packets. Increasing security and privacy has become an increasingly important focus, especially in later generations.
From one to five
Bluetooth has come a long way since its introduction in 1998. Bluetooth is one of many technologies resulting from a collaboration between technology players. The founders of Bluetooth SIG include Intel, Toshiba, Ericsson, Nokia, and IBM; later, Microsoft, Lenovo, Apple, and Google also joined. The name ‘Bluetooth’ has nothing to do with the technology but is an ode to the tenth-century Danish/Norwegian king Harald Bluetooth.
After its introduction at the end of the twentieth century, a first generational change followed in 2004 with Bluetooth 2.0, and 2.1 in 2007. The second generation provided faster data transfer up to 3 Mbps, and version 2.1 introduced the principle of pairing for security. Bluetooth 3.0 sought to bridge the gap with wireless internet by enabling data transfers via Wi-Fi, although this generation had a short lifespan.
With Bluetooth version 4.0, the LE variant was born to reduce energy consumption, while version 4.2 focused on IoT functionality and better security. Multipoint was introduced specifically for headphones to improve the user experience across multiple devices.
Most devices today support Bluetooth 5 in one of its variants. Bluetooth 5 improves the ability to increase data transfer speeds over short distances or to increase range at lower speeds. Version 5.1 introduced more precise location tracking. For headphones, version 5.2 was the most important thanks to Auracast, a technology for streaming audio to multiple receivers. Updates 5.3 and 5.4 further refined encryption and efficiency.
Bluetooth 6: what’s changing?
Since last year, the Bluetooth SIG has switched to a semi-annual release cadence. This means that from now on, we will get two version releases that bring incremental improvements rather than one large annual or biennial update. Bluetooth 6.1 and 6.2 were announced in 2025, and the first devices supporting 6.1 are being launched gradually.
The sixth generation and its descendants build on the three core themes of previous updates: accuracy, energy efficiency, and security. Version 6.0 introduces channel sounding, which allows the distance between devices to be determined with almost centimeter-level accuracy. Privacy is central to the current version: by rotating temporary MAC addresses at random intervals, your devices are much harder to track.
These improvements mostly make a difference in the background. For the average user, it shouldn’t really matter whether a device supports Bluetooth 5.4 or 6.1. They just want to be able to connect their devices without any fuss and without it draining the battery. Bluetooth has guaranteed that since 1998: invisible, but also indispensable connectivity.
For the average user, it shouldn’t really matter whether a device supports Bluetooth 5.4 or 6.1.