The Next Wave of IoT Bluetooth Devices Might Not Have Batteries

The Bluetooth 5 standard was designed primarily to share information between devices within the confines of the home or a car and in a workplace. That said, the new version of Bluetooth has properties that should make it attractive for some Internet of things applications. Atmosic Technologies is focusing on low-power Bluetooth 5 wireless platforms to enable networks of IoT devices that are, as the company says, "Forever Connected, Anywhere."The new Bluetooth 5 offers performance improvements over legacy Bluetooth of four times the range, twice the speed, and eight times the bandwidth. Bluetooth 5 extends the functions that were already provided by the previous versions and aims at greater flexibility and interaction between the network-connected devices. What might link Bluetooth 5 to the IoT at large is the presence of Bluetooth in smartphones and tablets. Many IoT applications require a long-range but minimal bandwidth capacity, transmitting data only intermittently. Bluetooth stands as an alternative for other IoT applications, offering mesh networking that can include a large number of nodes. Bluetooth 5 can guarantee a decentralized system of devices without having to resort to a single controller hub – a real peer-to-peer communication network in which the nodes are equivalent or, better, equal. Different products will be able to interact and work together.