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Deprecated Specifications

​​​​Deprecating specifications is the reduction of a specification's use due to redundancy or obsolescence. Once approved, specification deprecation begins with the Deprecation Notice Period.​

Specifications may eventually reach their end-of-life. When this occurs, a specification may either be deprecated or withdrawn. A specification deprecation recommendation can be submitted to the Bluetooth Architectural Review Board (BARB) at any time. BARB will address all deprecation recommendations at least annually. After Working Group review, the BARB may accept or reject the deprecation recommendation and provide recommendations to the Board of Directors

Upon Board of Director approval to deprecate a specification, the deprecation notice period begins with notification to all Members that the specification has been deprecated. Specifications deprecated by the Bluetooth SIG results in the end of maintenance of the specification and all of the following occur:

• All outstanding errata written against the deprecated specification will be reviewed for their applicability to other specifications and may be rejected in the errata system and rewritten against any applicable specification(s).
• New errata submitted against a deprecated specification will be rejected.
• Subsequent ESRs will not contain errata applied to deprecated specifications or any associated test documents (this includes removing any errata currently approved for inclusion in a pending ESR).
• The deprecated specification will not be included in any future specification releases.
• Errata will be created to update any references to deprecated specifications, in other specifications
• The TCRL will be updated to indicate the deprecation of the specification.
• If there is any special branding connected with the deprecated specification, it will be reviewed and either updated to reflect the profile deprecation or removed.
• The deprecated specification, ICS, Test Specification, and related TCRL will be moved to an alternative location on the Bluetooth SIG Member web site for deprecated specifications.
• The Bluetooth SIG member web site will provide guidance regarding which specification(s) should be used instead of the deprecated specification(s).

The Bluetooth SIG may also withdraw specifications. These specifications are deemed to have significant interoperability issues so severe to warrant preventing any new products implementing these specifications to continue being produced in the market. As a result, new products will not be permitted to be qualified using the withdrawn specification. Please refer to the Qualification Program Reference Guide (PRD) for more information. For more information on deprecation policies, please refer the Specification Management Process Document.