Earlier this week, the Bluetooth Special Interest Group, or SIG, announced a series of updates to the Bluetooth Core Specification. This latest update, Bluetooth Version 4.1 is designed to increase usability for both consumers and developers, and to enable the Internet of Things (IoT).
“Bluetooth Smart technology put us on a rocket ship of growth, with Bluetooth annual product shipment projections skyrocketing to more than 4.5 billion in the next five years,” said Suke Jawanda, Bluetooth SIG CMO, in a press release this week. “We updated the Bluetooth specification to address this projected growth, making changes to give developers more control in assigning a role to their product, limiting interference with other wireless technologies, and allowing Bluetooth Smart products to exchange data faster and maintain connections with less manual intervention. These updates reflect the demand we see in the market. We will continue to sculpt Bluetooth wireless technology to extend its critical role in enabling the Internet of Things and ensure it is the very best solution for OEMs, developers and, ultimately, consumers.”
The Bluetooth v. 4.1 focuses specifically on improving connections and data transfer, via the addition of bulk transfer exchange rates. In addition, this latest version has been designed to coexist with LTE technologies. For developers, Bluetooth version 4.1 has the ability to allow a single device to function in many roles at the same time, and will be able to be used for IPv6 systems.
