Faster, More-Responsive Bluetooth 5 Could Arrive by Year-End, Says Bluetooth SIG

Bluetooth 5, due in the market late this year or early 2017, will include “significantly increased” range, speed, and broadcast messaging capacity, said the Bluetooth SIG Thursday. The next-generation version will quadruple range and double speed of low-energy connections while increasing capacity of connectionless data broadcasts by 800 percent, said the trade group. Extending range will improve IoT reliability connections in home, building and outdoor use cases, it said, and higher speeds will optimize responsiveness. Improving broadcast capacity will spur the next generation of “connectionless” services such as beacons and location-relevant information and navigation, it said. More operating range enables 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,” said Bluetooth SIG Executive Director Mark Powell. The boost in broadcast messaging capacity will enable transferred data to be “richer” and “more intelligent,” he said. Bluetooth transmission will move away from the app-paired-to-device model to a connectionless IoT where there's "less need to download an app or connect the app to a device,” Powell said. He forecast Bluetooth will be in more than a third of installed IoT devices by 2020. Some 8.2 billion Bluetooth products are in use today, he said.