Bluetooth 5 coming to devices in 2-6 months with these features

By Chris Burns/Dec. 7, 2016 11:06 am EST

As of today, the December 7th 2016, Bluetooth 5 is within 2 to 6 months away from consumer-ready products. This information comes from the folks at Bluetooth Special Interest Group (Bluetooth SIG), the most official source of Bluetooth certification information. The headline they chose this week was "Bluetooth 5 Now Available" – though that's largely aimed at manufacturers readying their devices for 2017.

This launch will propel a number of products to launch as they carry a new era of wireless technology. Several new factors are involved in this, each of which could spell big changes for mobile and Internet of Things products throughout the world. As a Bluetooth SIG representative tells us, key updates to Bluetooth 5 include the following:

1. Longer Range (4X)

2. Faster Speed (2X)

3. Larger broadcast message capacity (8X)

Bluetooth 5 will also have "improved interoperability and coexistence with other wireless technologies." This should act to solidify the existence of Bluetooth as a go-to technology for data transfer and local connectivity between devices. This should also drive manufacturers to choose Bluetooth 5 over competing technologies like Wi-Fi direct.

According to Bluetooth 5 spec, Bluetooth 5 offers connections with data rates of 721.2 kb/s for Basic Rate, 2.1 Mb/s for Enhanced Data Rate and high speed operation up to 54 Mb/s with the 802.11 AMP. Bluetooth 5's change from 4.2 to 5 offers up the following "major areas of improvement" according to the spec:

• Slot Availability Mask (SAM)

• 2 Msym/s PHY for LE

• LE Long Range

• High Duty Cycle Non-Connectable Advertising

• LE Advertising Extensions

• LE Channel Selection Algorithm #2

The ONE feature removed with this generation was Park State. But we weren't using that anyway, so good riddance. This newest edition of Bluetooth 5 works at a common 2.4 GHz ISM band. This frequency band is 2400 – 2483.5 MHz.

Now if only Apple would let me transfer photos from an iPhone to a desktop machine without Wi-Fi. That'd be really super nice and I'd appreciate it.