Since its debut in the mid-1990s, Bluetooth has become one of the four wireless technologies on mobile phones, and the other three are cellular data, WiFi and NFC. Now Bluetooth is divided into two types, "traditional" and "low-power". The former is mainly used for wireless keyboards and mice, speakers and microphones, while the latter, low-power Bluetooth (BLE), which saves much more power than the former, is mostly used for medical equipment, sports accessories and beacons, etc. Therefore, intelligent sports accessories such as FitBit use low-power Bluetooth (BLE).

In June, SIG (Bluetooth Technology Alliance) released the latest Bluetooth 5 technology standard in London. Unlike its predecessor, this generation has no suffix of ". 0". Compared with its name change, this generation of Bluetooth standards has many commendable points. It is worth mentioning that Bluetooth 5 can be compatible with old devices, It means you can still use the wireless keyboard and mouse and wireless speakers you bought before.

The first change is the increase of the reception range. The effective transmission distance of Bluetooth 4. X BLE outdoors is 50 meters to 100 meters (without object occlusion), and indoors is reduced to 10 meters to 20 meters. Bluetooth 5 is 4 times the effective transmission distance of the former. It is conservatively estimated that the effective distance can reach 200 meters outdoors and 40 meters indoors, which can serve smart home products more efficiently. Another improvement is the performance. The data transmission speed of Bluetooth 4. X BLE is 1Mbps, and that of Bluetooth 5 BLE is twice as fast as 2Mbps. In theory, the data transmission speed of wearable devices in the future will be more than twice that of today, which is ready for the advent of high-speed Bluetooth transmission devices in the future.

(The advent of Bluetooth 5 will bring smart home to a new height.)

Bluetooth 5 also supports indoor positioning and navigation function, which can be used as indoor navigation beacon or similar positioning equipment. Combined with WiFi, it can achieve indoor positioning with accuracy less than 1 meter. In this way, you can find your way through devices that support Bluetooth 5 in very large stores. In addition, Bluetooth 5 has made many low-level optimizations for the Internet of Things to strive for lower power consumption and higher performance. With such a high transmission speed and reception range, it seems that Bluetooth 5 will consume a lot of power, but this is not the case. Through some small changes on the spectrum channel, Bluetooth 5 actually saves more power.

At the same time, Bluetooth 5 allows you to receive beacon data without pairing, such as advertisements Beacon、 For location information, the transmission rate is increased by 8 times.

A brief summary

1. Bluetooth 5 will be faster

In theory, it will be twice as fast as Bluetooth 4. X BLE, up to 2Mbps. Although it may not reach the theoretical value in fact, it will certainly be much faster than Bluetooth 4. X.

2. Wider reception range

Similarly, the theoretical reception range can reach up to 200 meters. When connecting wireless devices such as Bluetooth speakers, they will no longer be limited.

3. More accurate positioning

Bluetooth 5 supports indoor positioning navigation, even if you are in the mall, you can also accurately locate your location.

4. Prepare for the coming of the Internet of Things era

With the improvement of low power consumption, transmission speed and reception range, smart home will usher in the next wave.

5. New hardware support is required

A new chip is required to support Bluetooth 5. Although it can also be compatible with old devices, it cannot obtain the above improved performance. It is expected that a large number of new devices supporting Bluetooth 5 will be launched in 2017.

Bluetooth 5 is expected to be officially released in 2016. Due to the change of working principle, if Bluetooth 5 is to be used, new hardware support will be required. We should see the introduction of Bluetooth 5 chip at the beginning of 2017, when major OEMs can start to produce hardware devices that support Bluetooth 5.

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