In addition to IPv6 support, what improvements have Bluetooth 4.2 made to IOT?

In addition to IPv6 support, what improvements have Bluetooth 4.2 made to IOT?

The Bluetooth 4.2 standard recently published by the bluetooth technology alliance is the Internet of Things, especially for low-power smart devices.

The Bluetooth technology that has been developing for many years is now widely used. It has not only become a standard for mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets, but also has become a choice for most devices such as wireless headphones, wireless mouse, and handles. Compared with WiFi wireless networks that work in similar frequencies, Bluetooth has the advantages of being compact and power-saving. It is very suitable for small devices with low operating power and short communication distance. Previously, the highest version of the bluetooth standard was 4.1, and the most popular version was 4.0.

With the development of smart devices and the rise of the concept of IOT, the industry has put forward higher requirements for short-distance wireless communication technology. In this context, Bluetooth 4.2 came into being.

The biggest improvement of Bluetooth 4.2 is the support of 6 LowPAN, that is, low-power wireless LAN technology based on IPv6 protocol. This technology allows multiple Bluetooth devices to access the Internet or LAN through one terminal. In the smart home system, traditional household electrical devices may be connected to the LAN for convenient interaction and control. However, most devices are not suitable for high-bandwidth and high-power WiFi access. Smart sockets, smart switches, smart lamps, air conditioners, purification/humidification devices, kitchen and bathroom appliances are more suitable for using Bluetooth transmission. In the past, each device must be connected to a smartphone or PC to be controlled, which greatly limits the use of Bluetooth. Bluetooth 4.2 allows the same room to have only one or two bluetooth devices to connect to the local area network (for example, Wireless AP supporting Bluetooth 4.2 ), all Bluetooth 4.2 devices in the room can be connected to the local area network without the involvement of mobile phones or PCs. In this way, most smart home appliances can discard complicated Wi-Fi connections and use Bluetooth transmission featuring light, small, and low power consumption. On the other hand, as the Wi-Fi network begins to migrate to the 5 GHz band, Bluetooth in the 2 GHz band can avoid mutual interference with WiFi. Switching a large number of devices to Bluetooth reduces the parallel transmission pressure of the router on the Wi-Fi end and improves the performance of the entire LAN.

Bluetooth 4.2 is also available in the commercial field. For example, a street lamp can be connected through a series of relays to connect to the IOT network in the city at the intersection. In this way, no need to ensure that each street lamp is within the Wi-Fi signal or 3/4G signal coverage. The restaurant can be equipped with a small Bluetooth Referer in all dining spaces to facilitate customers to call the waiter and view the food preparation progress. The factory can install Bluetooth monitoring chips for key devices and remotely view the machine status in real time. Compared with Wi-Fi connections, Bluetooth is cheaper, the chip is very small, and energy-saving. It can be used as a secondary connection layer for Wi-Fi/wired networks in Iot networks, you can easily include a large number of devices that only need to transmit brief information into the entire network. Because IPv6 is directly supported, the Bluetooth 4.2 device is easy to remotely discover and control over the Internet after being connected to the LAN, and its application scenarios are more extensive.

Another major improvement of Bluetooth 4.2 is its privacy. Now, a bluetooth device only connects to a trusted terminal and requests the user's permission before connecting to a strange terminal. This improvement prevents users from inadvertently exposing their locations or leaving their own records. In the past, a mobile phone with Bluetooth enabled can be easily recorded by people around you and the Bluetooth MAC address. This will not happen in the future, and users can enable Bluetooth at any time with greater confidence. Of course, this is not good news for Apple's iBeacon technology. It mainly relies on public Bluetooth connections for location and information collection. What apple will do next is worth noting.

In terms of Transmission Performance, Bluetooth 4.2 has been improved in some aspects. Although the media widely reported that Bluetooth 4.2 is 2.5 times wider than the previous versions, this improvement is limited to Bluetooth Low-power transmission. In the past, the transmission rate of low-power Bluetooth connections was approximately 260 Kbps, and the new standard was increased to 650 Kbps. The transmission rate is still 2.1 Mbps at full power consumption. Considering that the new standard will be mainly applied to low-power Iot terminals, it makes sense to greatly improve the low-power transmission rate.

One of the major advantages of the new standard is that you do not need to update the hardware of the existing device. You only need to upgrade the firmware, but the improvement of transmission performance requires a change in the hardware layer. This means that a large number of existing Bluetooth devices may obtain new network connection capabilities through simple software updates; smart devices can also be quickly developed using mature Bluetooth Chip suites. It is expected that, when the Bluetooth 4.2 standard was extended in 2015, the newly developed Iot devices will use this standard to replace or supplement the Wi-Fi connection method. Smart routers or wireless APs that provide network access capabilities for Bluetooth 4.2 terminals will also be available in large quantities to provide users with a basic network environment. The new Bluetooth Standard brings Iot closer to our lives, and we can quickly feel the conveniences it brings.