LC3 (codec)

LC3 (Low Complexity Communication Codec) is an audio codec specified by the Bluetooth Special Interest Group (SIG) for the LE Audio audio protocol introduced in Bluetooth 5.2. It's developed by Fraunhofer IIS and Ericsson as the successor of the SBC codec.

LC3 provides higher audio quality and better Packet loss concealment than SBC, G.722 and Opus, according to subjective testing by the Bluetooth Special Interest Group and ETSI. The conclusion regarding Opus is disputed as the test only included speech audio, but the comparison was made to version 1.1.4 of the reference Opus encoder, using complexity level 0 at 32 kbps and relying on CELT (general audio) instead of the FEC-capable SILK (speech); the test also did not take into account the newer version 1.2 of the Opus encoder released in 2017, where significant improvements were made to low bitrate streams.

Supported systems:


 * Android 13;   Google's liblc3 codec is open-source as a standalone GitHub project
 * Windows 11
 * Zephyr OS
 * Linux via bluez-alsa or BlueZ + PipeWire

LC3plus
LC3plus High Resolution mode is a codec defined by ETSI and is not compatible with the LC3 defined by Bluetooth SIG. It's included in the 2019 DECT standard.

On November 9, 2022, the Japan Audio Society (JAS) released a statement certifying LC3plus with the "Hi-Res AUDIO WIRELESS" logo. LC3plus is the 4th codec to receive this, alongside SCL6 (formerly known as MQair), LDAC and LHDC codecs.

The ETSI implementation of LC3plus is source-available software, subject to a ETSI Intellectual Property Rights Policy and the usual patent restrictions.

Fraunhofer defines a way to use LC3plus over A2DP.