A history of all the major Bluetooth releases and updates

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By Jerry Hildenbrand, Joe Maring
last updated

Bluetooth 3.0

Samsung Galaxy S II

Source: Android Central (Image credit: Source: Android Central)

There was nearly a two-year gap between Bluetooth 2.1 and 3.0, with the latter being adopted by the SIG in April 2009. Where EDR was the main draw to the 2.0 and 2.1 days, Bluetooth 3.0's claim to fame was its HS — high-speed channel.

In theory, Bluetooth 3.0 could achieve data transfer speeds up to a whopping 24/Mbs. However, those speeds didn't happen solely over Bluetooth. Instead, Bluetooth 3.0 established a link connection to the 802.11 protocol (AKA, Wi-Fi).

With such vastly-improved speeds, Bluetooth was finally ready to go beyond audio transfers. Now, it was fast enough to stream video wirelessly between devices.

This is one of the biggest speed bumps Bluetooth has ever seen, and it was also the last iteration of the wireless standard before we were introduced to the world of Bluetooth Low Energy.

Jerry Hildenbrand
Jerry Hildenbrand
Senior Editor — Google Ecosystem

Jerry is an amateur woodworker and struggling shade tree mechanic. There's nothing he can't take apart, but many things he can't reassemble. You'll find him writing and speaking his loud opinion on Android Central and occasionally on Twitter.