Bluetooth Core 6.1 Released – What’s New!

Bluetooth SIG’s decision to transition to a bi-annual release cadence marks a strategic pivot toward fostering rapid iteration and market responsiveness.

The organization seeks to empower developers to integrate enhancements more efficiently by streamlining the delivery of completed features, reducing the lag between standardization and real-world implementation.

Alain Michaud, Chair of the Bluetooth SIG Board of Directors, emphasized the significance of this shift:

“This new cadence ensures incremental improvements reach developers faster, fueling innovation and helping meet evolving market needs with greater agility.”

Bluetooth 6.1 exemplifies this approach, delivering targeted refinements to privacy and power management-two areas of heightened demand in applications ranging from wearable devices to smart home ecosystems.

Early testing indicates a 15–20% reduction in power usage for devices frequently establishing new connections, such as smartwatches pairing with smartphones.

This improvement caters to the escalating demand for sustainability in consumer electronics, where battery longevity remains a top purchasing criterion.

Key benefits: 

• Increased device privacy: Randomizing the timing of address changes makes it much more difficult for third parties to track or correlate device activity over time.
• Improved power efficiency: The Bluetooth® Randomized RPA Updates feature offloads the address change operation to the Controller, helping conserve battery life.

Privacy Through Randomized RPA Updates

The Randomized RPA Updates feature addresses longstanding vulnerabilities in Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) protocols, where static or predictable device addresses could enable third-party tracking.

Previously, devices periodically changed their RPA to obscure identity, but the timing of these changes followed patterns that sophisticated adversaries could exploit.

Bluetooth 6.1 mitigates this risk by randomizing both the RPA itself and the intervals at which addresses refresh, creating a dynamic shield against correlation attacks.

For example, a fitness tracker in a crowded urban area would now alter its identifier at irregular intervals, making it significantly harder for surveillance systems to link its activity over time.

This advancement aligns with growing regulatory emphasis on consumer privacy, particularly in regions like the EU, where stringent data protection laws govern IoT devices.

Power Efficiency Gains

In addition to privacy improvements, Bluetooth 6.1 optimizes energy consumption by offloading RPA update operations from a device’s main processor to its Bluetooth Controller-a dedicated chip handling wireless communication.

This architectural adjustment reduces computational overhead, allowing devices to conserve battery life without sacrificing performance.

Even marginal efficiency gains can translate into hours of extended operation for resource-constrained gadgets like hearing aids or medical sensors.

Alongside technical updates, Bluetooth 6.1 introduces a feature description appendix to the organization’s communications guide.

This resource standardizes language for describing Bluetooth capabilities, ensuring consistent messaging across marketing materials, product packaging, and technical documentation.

The SIG explicitly advises against referencing core specification versions (e.g., “Bluetooth 6.1”) in consumer-facing content, urging members to highlight specific functionalities instead.

For instance, a pair of wireless earbuds might emphasize “enhanced privacy mode” or “low-energy audio streaming” rather than technical compliance details.

The Bluetooth SIG’s revised release strategy signals a broader industry trend toward modular, incremental innovation.

With the next update slated for November 2025, developers anticipate further enhancements in areas like mesh networking reliability and ultra-wideband integration.

As connected devices proliferate, Bluetooth 6.1’s focus on privacy and efficiency positions it as a critical enabler for the next generation of IoT ecosystems-balancing user security with the practical demands of daily use.