Bluetooth 5.0 is used in many daily tasks these days. We’ll tell you about the advantages of the latest generation of standards.
The Bluetooth standard is continuously being further developed. (Source: Blankstock/depositphotos.com)
- Bluetooth 5 and its successor versions have been standard in all modern devices since 2016.
- Above all, newer versions offer a better transfer rate or new codecs for audio devices.
- All Bluetooth 5 versions are fully backward compatible with older versions.
The headphones that you use to wake up to music in the morning, the electric toothbrush that you use to brush your teeth, your smartwatch that always displays the latest time, the car radio, the smart lightbulb: these and many other devices could do the trick wouldn’t even exist without a technology called Bluetooth.
The standard has existed since the early days of mobile phones. The first version of Bluetooth has been around since July 1999, almost a quarter of a century. At that time, the maximum data transfer rate was 732.2 kbit/s and devices from different manufacturers were not compatible with each other. Since then, however, the technology has advanced significantly. Since 2016, we have been using Bluetooth 5 or a successor version in almost all cases when using mobile devices and the corresponding accessories.
The innovations of Bluetooth 5.0
What innovations does this bring? With Bluetooth 5.0, the range of the networks has been increased to up to 200 meters (outside), the maximum data rate has doubled to up to 2 Mbit/s in Bluetooth LE mode. In addition, location-related information can be transmitted since Bluetooth 5.0.
On the other hand, there were fewer innovations worth mentioning in version 5.1, only minor improvements were introduced here. As a new feature, the so-called direction finding was introduced – a technology with which the location of devices (or at least the determination of their direction) should be made possible in a similar way to ultra-broadband.
The Bluetooth version 5.2 presented in 2021 offered many improvements in the audio area. With Low Energy Audio, a new technology was introduced that enabled significantly energy-saving audio transmission. In addition, the audio codec LC3, which is significantly improved compared to SBC, was introduced as a low-loss and low-latency codec.
The current standard Bluetooth 5.3
With Bluetooth 5.3, the developers primarily improved the reliability, user-friendliness and energy efficiency of the standard. Thanks to the new version, manufacturers of Bluetooth-enabled devices now have more options to implement the standard in a way that makes it more secure and accessible for end users. There weren’t many concrete improvements.
Bluetooth 5.4 is currently being worked on, but Bluetooth 6 could soon be a whole new generation on our devices.
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