TIME names Auracast one of the best inventions of 2026, and gets one detail wrong

TIME has put Auracast on its Best Inventions of 2026 list. The entry, written by Rob Pegoraro and published on 15 October, sits in the Connectivity and Communication section under the line "Broadcast your own mini station". Aurahear spotted it on 30 October.

It is a strange kind of invention award. The Bluetooth SIG published the Auracast specification in 2023, and for most of the time since you could only use it if you knew where to look. TIME's choice says more about 2026 than about the technology: this was the year it reached airports, cinema chains, whole opera houses and every big hearing-aid maker.

What TIME said

TIME opens with the wired-earbud sharing that Bluetooth killed off, and says Auracast "brings audio sharing back on a bigger scale". It describes Auracast as a way to "send out public audio feeds for an unlimited number of nearby Bluetooth devices to access".

It quotes Henry Wong, the Bluetooth SIG's director of market development: "Live events streaming to hearing aids is common." Wong lists the venues that now support it as "houses of worship, theaters, transportation venues, [and] universities". That matches what we see in our venue directory, from Sydney Opera House to Munich Airport.

The other Auracast products on the list

According to Aurahear, several other entries on this year's list touch Auracast:

• Samsung Galaxy S26 Ultra, which can both start and join a broadcast from its Bluetooth settings.
• Fortell AI hearing aids, listed as Auracast-enabled.
• Cochlear Nucleus Nexa, the cochlear implant system Cochlear calls Auracast-ready. TIME's entry notes it "can receive future firmware updates without surgery". We list it as firmware pending until that update arrives.
• Nothing Ear (3a), which has Bluetooth 6.0 and could gain Auracast through an update. Nothing has not promised one.
• Apple's iPhone Duo, which made the list without Auracast. Apple still has no LE Audio on the iPhone, as we covered when the iPhone 18 launched.

The bit TIME got wrong

TIME says "most Android phones and Windows laptops natively support the standard", while Apple users need third-party apps and compatible headphones.

The Android half is fair. Recent Samsung, Pixel and Sony phones can find and join broadcasts, and Samsung's can start one. Our phone guide has the model-by-model detail.

The Windows half does not hold up. Windows 11 has a feature called shared audio, which uses LE Audio broadcast to send a PC's sound to two headsets at once. It is useful, but it is not an open Auracast broadcast that anyone nearby can join, and it caps at two. More to the point, Windows cannot scan for or join an Auracast broadcast at all. A Windows laptop at a theatre or an airport gate hears nothing. We explain what Windows does and does not do in Does Windows 11 support Auracast?.

If you want a Windows PC to send a real Auracast broadcast today, a USB dongle does it.

Why it matters

Awards do not change what a hearing aid can do. But TIME has a much wider readership than hearing-health sites and audio forums, and most people still have never heard of Auracast. Venues are installing transmitters faster than the public learns there is anything to listen to. If an issue with Apple's CEO on the cover tells a few hundred thousand more people to look in their phone's Bluetooth settings, that helps every venue that has already paid for one.