There’s a new sheriff in town, and its name is Bluetooth 5. It sports a bevy of new upgrades, including longer range, larger broadcast message capacity, and faster speed. But it doesn’t stop there – it has been designed specifically to play nice with other technologies, namely LTE.
This week the Bluetooth Special Interest Group (SIG) adopted Bluetooth 5 as the latest version of the core specification. Specifically, Bluetooth 5 provides four times range, eight times the broadcast capacity, and twice the speed.
Bluetooth five also includes a feature called Slot Availability Mask (SAM) that automatically skips broadcast channels used LTE, which reduces packet loss and increases reliability.
Many of these key features were spawned several years ago by Bluetooth Low Energy, which is spurring strong growth. Bluetooth SIG members watched carefully as IoT exploded in recent years and used it to drive their roadmap.
Consumers should be able to expect products to start shipping with Bluetooth 5 capabilities in two to six months.
