The Bluetooth Special Interest Group (SIG) has just adopted the Bluetooth 6.1 Core Specification with the addition of the randomized Resolvable Private Address (RPA) Updates feature and several errata.
The Randomized RPA updates feature is designed to enhance privacy and power efficiency in Bluetooth devices by randomizing the timing of address changes to make it much more difficult for third parties to track or correlate device activity over time, and offloading the address change operation to the Controller to help the Bluetooth device extend its battery life.
That’s about all there is for Bluetooth 6.1, except some errata like “Pause Encryption should be mandatory to support with encryption”. You’ll find the latest specification on the Bluetooth website, as well as a page specific to Randomized RPA Updates. None of the usual silicon vendors like Silicon Labs, Nordic Semi, or NXP have announced any updates to Bluetooth 6.1.
One of the reasons for the limited number of new features (really just one in Bluetooth 6.1) is that the Bluetooth SIG has now moved to a bi-annual release schedule. The Bluetooth 6.0 Core Specification was adopted with Channel Sounding, latency reduction, improved scanning efficiency, and more in September 2024, so it took about eight months before the following release, and Bluetooth 6.2 should be adopted by the end of the year.
I was expecting Bluetooth LE HDT (High Data Throughput) with support for up to 7.5 Mbps since it’s already implemented in Ceva-Waves Links200 IP, but it will have to wait for Bluetooth 6.2 or maybe Bluetooth 7.0 (next year?) as it looks to be quite a big change.
Via Bluetooth SIG announcement
Jean-Luc started CNX Software in 2010 as a part-time endeavor, before quitting his job as a software engineering manager, and starting to write daily news, and reviews full time later in 2011.
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