Explained: What is Bluetooth LE audio and how it could make the next AirPods Pro better

Bluetooth LE Audio, in which LE stands for Low Energy, is one of the types of Bluetooth connection, the other one being Bluetooth Classic. The LE Audio not only offers a Low Energy solution for audio transmission but also low power and low bandwidth and supports low latency. The LE Audio is expected to improve upon the sound quality of the transmitted audio and will be an upgrade to Bluetooth Classic which has been used till now for transmitting audio. The reason behind this is that the “standard Bluetooth can reach a higher throughput by more frequent continuous radio usage” as per Nordic Semiconductor, a Bluetooth SIG member. On the other hand, Bluetooth LE is about conserving power and hence, uses its radio for the shortest possible time.
The Bluetooth LE Audio was announced by Bluetooth SIG at CES 2020 and is expected to come to the next-gen Apple AirPods along with support for the LC3 codec.

The LC3 (Low Complexity Communication) codec is a Bluetooth audio codec, specially designed for use in LE Audio profiles. The codec, as per the official Bluetooth SIG website, is capable of encoding speech and music at various bitrates and can be incorporated into any Bluetooth audio profile. The LC3 codec compresses the audio to a very low bit rate without sacrificing the audio quality, says the official website. This allows for not only faster data transmission, but also limited bandwidth. The LC3 is an upgrade over the classic SBC codec and can give better quality audio even at a 50% lower bit rate, according to the Bluetooth SIG.
How LE Audio could benefit AirPods Pro
Provided that source devices like the iPhone, iPad and Mac are also upgraded with support for the LE Audio in future, the AirPods Pro could benefit from the tech in a variety of ways. First off, there would be an improvement in the audio output quality as the LE audio comes with the low-power audio codec LC3 the audio benefits of which we have mentioned just in the preceding paragraph.
Secondly, due to the LC3 being a low-power audio codec, the battery life of the future AirPods Pro will be longer.
Further, the audio codec could also allow for multi-stream audio capabilities as with the Bluetooth LE Audio, multiple synchronised audio streams could be established between a source device like iPhone or Mac and the AirPods Pro. Hence, the user would be able to connect the left and the right AirPod with their own Bluetooth audio connections.
LE Audio would also make it possible for the AirPods user to connect several pairs of Apple’s TWS earbuds to an iPhone, iPad, Mac or other compatible device and play audio simultaneously. Though Apple already offers a feature that allows an iPhone or iPad user with AirPods to share audio with another person with AirPods, there is a restriction of two pairs of AirPods, something which the LE Audio may help transcend.
Additionally, with the LE Audio, there would be no need for the user to switch between multiple source devices like an iPhone and Mac