Bluetooth connectivity in the area of ​​sound, has undergone spectacular development in recent years. I remember once in the early to mid 2000’s I bought a bluetooth headset that I used with my phone at the time. I couldn’t even use them for five minutes because the sound quality was so, so bad and the latency so unacceptably high that the experience could be described as a nightmare. And since then, for quite some time, I’ve had quite a few reservations about this connection system.

My opinion started to change in 2017 when I installed a Parrot MKi 9100 handsfree in my car, which I have been using ever since for making and receiving calls and mainly listening to music. Things have already improved a lot and we are talking about Bluetooth 2.0 with A2DP and AVRCP. Now, in the present, the quality of Bluetooth audio transmission It already fully suits the vast majority of needs.

In terms of latency, the situation has also improved, but not as much as in quality. It is true that in general this time is very short, but not so much as to be imperceptible. So if you’re using a Bluetooth headset, you may have noticed on more than one occasion a slight gap between, for example, when you perform an action in a game and when you hear a sound. associated with it..

However, that seems very close to changing. And that’s exactly what we can read in the press release, the company announced Qualcomm S3 Gen 2 to enable Snapdragon Sound compatible devices to reduce Bluetooth audio connection latency to 20 milliseconds. For some context, remember that many high-end headphones like Apple’s AirPods Pro clock in at 120 to 150 milliseconds, and that OnePlus claims its Buds Pro can hit 94 milliseconds.

This second generation Qualcomm S3 also supports streaming features LE Audio Auracast for dongles and adapters, indicating that any type of device compatible with this technology (TVs, computers, consoles, etc.) will be able to take advantage of this ultra-low latency. And if you care about the sound quality, it allows you to stream HD content 24 bits and 96 kHz.

While the first thing that comes to mind when learning about technologies like this is of course the reproduction of music and sound associated with audiovisual content, Qualcomm focuses on the fact that The Qualcomm S3 Gen 2 was also designed with gaming in mind and that therefore they will also be able to enjoy the benefits of low latency and high sound quality through the latest generation of Bluetooth connectivity.