The fifth generation of the Bluetooth wireless communication standard has been ratified, and its advancements should help spur even more activity around IoT (Internet of Things).
Bluetooth 5.0 was first unveiled last year by the Bluetooth Special Interest Group, which counts more than 30,000 electronics, telecom and networking companies under its membership.
Compared to the previous Bluetooth 4.2, Bluetooth 5.0 quadruples the standard's range, doubles its speed and increases message capacity eightfold. What does this enable? Quite a bit, as the SIG's announcement notes:
Longer range powers whole home and building coverage, for more robust and reliable connections. Higher speed enables more responsive, high-performance devices. Increased broadcast message size increases the data sent for improved and more context relevant solutions.
Bluetooth 5's arrival is "in recognition that the Internet of Things has become a fact of life," says Constellation Research VP and principal analyst Andy Mulholland. "Low-price and power-demand processors have massively ramped up the numbers and capabilities of devices leading in turn to the need for improvements in communication networks. Bluetooth-based connectivity has become a staple in our lives and our personal networks for those reasons, but those as our personal networks continue to grow in size and amounts of data the pressing need for Bluetooth 5 is all too apparent to support the next generation of devices."
Bluetooth has competed with other wireless standards such as wi-fi and Zigbee, and has touted its low power requirements and flexible architecture as selling points. Bluetooth 5 is a superset of all previous versions along with the new features and products based on it should start appearing within as soon as a couple of months.
Zigbee uses a mesh network configuration, in which each node in the network forwards information to other nodes. Because each node only needs to communicate with the one closest to it, rather than send information back to a central hub, that saves on power and can also make the network more reliable. Bluetooth SIG is working on a specification for mesh and it's expected to be released soon. But some efforts around Bluetooth mesh networks are already well underway. All in all, 2017 looks like an interesting year for Bluetooth and its role in IoT.
