The Bluetooth Special Interest Group (SIG) has announced that it’ll be releasing its new connectivity standard called Bluetooth 5 by early 2017. The updated wireless connectivity standard brings with it several improvements such as an increase in range, speed and capacity. SIG aims to tackle most of the “limitations” faced by the 2014-released Bluetooth V4.2 – especially in terms of IoT usage.
The last time SIG announced a major update to Bluetooth was way back in 2009 with the V3.0 standard. That said, when it comes to the fifth revision of the memory standard, SIG has mentioned that that it’ll come with twice the transfer speeds; which could mean that, for the first time, Bluetooth could reach speeds surpassing 1000kbps – theoretically.
Bluetooth 5 also comes with improved broadcast range; which is said to be up to four times greater compared to its predecessor. Bluetooth’s broadcast range plays a very important role in plenty of modern day tasks and devices. The improvement in broadcast range will not only allow for IoT devices to have better connectivity to their respective “receivers”, but also for common folk like us, who want to transfer “files” to each other without having worry about too much about the distance of the paired devices.
Speaking of which, the final major update that comes with Bluetooth 5.0 is the increase in its broadcast capacity. According to SIG, the improvements in the broadcast capacity of Bluetooth 5 when compared to its predecessor is said to be up to 800%. With this improvement, services such as beacons and location-based navigation and information will be even more efficient in the future.
“Smartwatches like the Apple Watch use Bluetooth to communicate with smartphones”
Bluetooth exists in almost every device we own today (chances are, the device you’re using to read this article has Bluetooth too), so it’s good to see such improvements being implemented into a very, very important wireless technology – for the benefits of everyone, of course.
(Source: Bluetooth)
