14 DAY TRIAL // Finnish mobile phone maker Nokia is preparing some new enhancements for its entire family of Windows Phone 8 Lumia smartphones, including the addition of support for Bluetooth LE to all these devices.
Support for Bluetooth 4.0 Low Energy (LE) hasn’t been available for Windows Phone 8 devices from the beginning, but Nokia has already brought it to some devices and plans on releasing it for all of them soon.
To be more precise, users should enjoy the capabilities of Bluetooth LE as soon as the Nokia Black update is released for their smartphones, and not sooner.
Of course, smartphones such as Nokia Lumia 520, Lumia 620, Lumia 625, and Lumia 720 already have the feature enabled, courtesy of the Amber update, but the rest of the family still falls behind.
However, Nokia has already confirmed plans to expand the functionality to all Windows Phone 8 Lumia devices out there, as discovered by NokiaPowerUser.
“Bluetooth LE allows you to connect your phone with special accessories like heart rate monitors. While doing that, thanks to Bluetooth LE connection, the accessory battery will last much longer, up to months,” Nokia explains in a FAQ on its US website.
“It is already available for 520, 620, 625, and 720 with Amber. With Lumia Black software update, Bluetooth LE will be enabled across the full WP8 Lumia range.”
With Bluetooth LE support enabled on their smartphones, Lumia users will have the possibility to connect more accessories to their devices, including smart watches.
For those out of the loop, we should note that the Nokia Black software update is expected to start arriving on devices sometime in the first quarter of the next year.
Soon after this release, Windows Phone 8 Lumia devices will taste yet another appealing update, in the form of Windows Phone 8.1, some of the most recent reports out there suggested.