Upcoming Bluetooth Enhancements Will Help Drive Market to 4.6 Billion Shipments by 2020, Says ABI

“Significant” enhancements to Bluetooth specs will help drive the market for Bluetooth-enabled devices to 4.6 billion shipments annually by 2020, from 2.8 billion this year, said ABI Research analyst Andrew Zignani. Roughly 19 billion Bluetooth devices are to ship over the five-year period, said a Wednesday ABI report. Bluetooth SIG added more than 2,800 members in 2015, and the Bluetooth Developer Studio will help the technology gain traction among developers and speed time to market, especially in IoT applications, Zignani said. Bluetooth is evolving to become a key component of “larger-scale networks” made up of heterogeneous devices, said Zignani. Major upcoming Bluetooth enhancements include a quadrupling of range capacity and doubling of throughput, better positioning Bluetooth for full-home coverage and outdoor use, ABI said. A throughput increase from 1 Mbps to 2 Mbps will reduce latency and increase responsiveness, while providing a “very compelling power consumption ratio” compared with competing technologies including 802.15.4, which tops out at 250 kbps, or the more power-hungry Wi-Fi, Zignani said. Smartphones will remain the bulk of the Bluetooth product market, with 45 percent of shipments in 2020, said ABI, but beacons, smart lighting, home automation and consumer robots will grow to 20 percent of shipments by 2020. The ubiquity of smartphones will allow Bluetooth to take advantage of unique use cases and opportunities compared with competing low-power technologies, said Zignani. Bluetooth is working toward adopting mesh networking within the standard, providing the scalability and range required for wireless sensor network applications, it said, although the timeline for Bluetooth mesh isn’t clear, he said. Chipset suppliers, such as Nordic Semiconductor, are working toward integrating IPv6 over Bluetooth Smart, which will help provide the foundation for IP-based application layer-level interoperability between different types of devices operating on different transport layers, such as 802.15.4 and Wi-Fi, said Zignani. As more device types enter the IoT, adopting a common language will become increasingly important to ensure interoperability and help grow the overall market, he said. The development of Bluetooth and near field communication combination integrated chips can secure provisioning of headless devices, such as smart light bulbs, sensors and other IoT devices, “simplifying the installation process while strengthening the overall security of the network,” Zignani said.