Bluetooth LE Audio in the real world: tackling RF issues, interoperability, and use-case diversity

Summary

An engineer's account of making LE Audio broadcast coexist with Wi-Fi inside combined Wi-Fi and Bluetooth audio products, with throughput tests and packet captures.

Key findings

• With Wi-Fi and LE Audio in one chip, one coexistence setting let an LE Audio broadcast drive Wi-Fi throughput "practically to zero". After re-tuning, Wi-Fi dipped and then recovered. In both cases LE Audio playback was undisturbed.
• Captures of a broadcast showed each packet repeated several times, which adds robustness at the cost of Wi-Fi airtime and sensitivity.
• In the example shown, the LE Audio transmitter avoided the active Wi-Fi channel but transmitted at the same time as Wi-Fi.
• Small products leave little room to separate antennas, and noise from DC/DC converters or switched-mode power supplies can reduce receiver sensitivity.
• Early LE Audio products formed closed ecosystems that paired only within one product family; cross-chip interoperability needed firmware-level work with chip vendors.

Limits

Concerns radios inside one product, not venue transmitters and listeners in a room. Results are shown as graphs without numeric values, chip models or test conditions.

Read the original

audioxpress.com/article/bluetooth-le-audio-in-the-real-world-tackling-rf-issues-interoperability-and-use-case-diversity

Link checked 9 October 2026. We link to the original and do not host copies.

Cited in

• How much do crowds, phones and Wi-Fi reduce reliability?Open

Cite this source

The accessed date is when this library last checked the link; use the date you read it. To point readers to this summary instead, link to https://assistivelisteningknowledgebase.org/evidence/apel-2025-audioxpress-coexistence/

Every finding here cites its source, and who funded each source is labelled. This site does not recommend products. Found an error or a missing study? Suggest a correction.