What is Bluetooth 5? How is it different from Bluetooth 4.x?
Bluetooth 5 is the latest in the wireless connection standard to transfer data over short distance using lower energy(battery). v5 was released in December 2016 (v4.2 is form 2014)
Longer Range
Bluetooth v5 has a range of about 4 times the range of the previous Bluetooth v4.2.
Faster
Much faster than Bluetooth v4.2 (about 2x) so faster data speed & transfer. Upto 2Mbps.
Broadcast channel improvements in Bluetooth 5
8x the broadcasting message capacity of v4.2.
IOT friendly
Version 5 has additional features to enable better & more reliable connectivity with IOT devices.
Location Services
Bluetooth 5 improves capacity to broadcast information without opening a connection. Upto 37 advertising channels.
Backward Compatibility with Bluetooth 4.x
Supports all the v4.2 features
To utilize these new features of Bluetooth 5.0, we would need to upgrade to the latest devices that can connect with current generation of cell phones like iPhone 11, iPhone 11 Pro, Samsung Galaxy S20, Samsung Note 20 that support the standard but until then our v4.2 devices will work just fine.
— Gary Saggu
Gary Saggu has been coding since the 80’s. He has been programming in C, C++,C#, Java, Objective C and Swift for many years. He has an interest in tech startups, blockchain & big-data technologies. He is a certified Yoga instructor & a scuba diver. Visit Gary Saggu’s tech blog here. Check out my new app Yogamap.
