As per the latest report, Google is preparing to add “Super Wideband” (SWB) Speech support to Android’s Bluetooth stack which enables even higher-quality voice transmission over the Bluetooth Hands-Free Profile (HFP)!
This will use the LC3 codec over HFP. In comparison, the codec behind the current “Wideband Speech” (WBS) is mSBC. We don’t know exactly how improved voice audio coded in LC3 will sound compared to mSBC – will have to wait for audio samples to find out.
One of the code changes also mentions the Bluetooth stack adding support for HFP 1.9. The currently adopted HFP spec is 1.8.
EDIT:
The Bluetooth SIG apparently already has a page covering Super Wide Band Speech and HFP 1.9. HFP 1.9 hasn’t been adopted yet, so the document that describes it is a WIP. Here’s Appendix E: Technical Specification of LC3-SWB.
