The Bluetooth Special Interest Group (SIG) this week announced that the next Bluetooth standard will launch by early 2017. Bluetooth 5 promises significantly increased range, speed, and broadcast messaging capacity. It should enable more pervasive and reliable Internet of Things (IoT) connections that can extend to your entire home or even to an entire building. Connectionless services like beacons and location-aware features will also benefit from the more powerful standard.
“Bluetooth 5 will transform the way people experience the IoT by making it something that happens simply and seamlessly around them,” said Mark Powell, executive director of the Bluetooth SIG. “Increasing operation range will enable connections to IoT devices that extend far beyond the walls of a typical home, while increasing speed supports faster data transfers and software updates for devices. And now with the ability to broadcast a much richer set of information, Bluetooth 5 will make beacons, location awareness, and other connectionless services an even more relevant part of an effortless and seamless IoT experience.”
Bluetooth 5 will quadruple range and double speed of low energy connections. It will also increase the messaging capacity, effectively enabling more data to travel further more quickly. This will reduce the need to download apps that are used today to manage more constrained data exchanges.
While the press release does not confirm it, it is likely that Bluetooth 5 will require new chipsets to work, leaving today’s devices unable to use it. Even if the standard comes out later this year, it will be a bit longer before we see devices supporting it. It will be a while longer after that before it becomes more ubiquitous.
Bluetooth is already in use in some 8.2 billion products. Bluetooth 5 could accelerate this trend, putting Bluetooth technology in more than one-third of all installed IoT devices by 2020.
Source : Bluetooth SIG