With Bluetooth Auracast, the headphones will be able to connect to public devices

This is surely the most important evolution of the Bluetooth standard in 15 years. Until now, with our headphones, we could only connect to our own devices (telephone, TV, HI-FI system, etc.), now the system will be more open.

We risk seeing more and more people with headphones screwed into their ears. Bluetooth headsets and earpieces will become universal receivers, all thanks to Auracast technology. In a café, for example, when there is a muted television, you can connect to it very easily and receive the sound in your headphones.

Same thing in conference rooms. Instead of offering you a headset with translation, everyone can use their own and choose the channel with the language they want. This could give cinemas ideas. Everyone would keep their headphones or earphones, then we would choose to have the film in VO or VF.

In Bluetooth, pairing, which allows devices to be connected to each other, can sometimes be difficult. With Auracast, the good news is that there won’t be any more. All you have to do is choose a transmitter from a list, just like choosing a wifi network. Most of the time there won’t even be a password. In fact, it uses the same principle of broadcasting as radio, where you just have to tune to a frequency (that of franceinfo, for example).

An update to make its headphones compatible

There is no theoretical limit to the number of receivers, it’s just a matter of range. Anyone within a 100 meter radius will be able to pick up the transmission. This technology is starting to be available, the first headsets and earphones have just been marketed. We also see the arrival of the first televisions and the first broadcast boxes.

The advantage of Auracast is that it only takes a simple update to make most devices released in the past four years compatible. So this could develop very quickly. We are thinking, for example, of museums which could create universal audio guides or airports which could only broadcast messages concerning your flight. A technology that we haven’t heard the last of.