Although Bluetooth Low Energy is the cornerstone of IoT, it is, however,not the only cornerstone. Apart from Bluetooth Low Energy, IoT implementations as involve several other technologies which are worth mentioning:
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Zigbee: Zigbee is a suite of communication protocols which are ideal for creating small personal area networks with low power digital radios, achieving transmission distances of 10-100 meters via line of sight communication. Zigbee has a defined data rate of 250 Kbps. These specifications make it ideal for home automation and low bandwidth needs. One of the popular use cases of Zigbee is the Philips Hue:
This is personalized smart wireless lighting (something similar to iLumi Smart Bulbs, which were introduced earlier; however, Philips Hue operates on Zigbee rather than BLE) operating in the following manner:
Bundled with the Hue smartphone app, as part of Hue Setup, the app connects to Wi-Fi and can send commands to a Philips Hue Bridge connected to the same network. This bridge can then translate these commands over Zigbee to the individual Philips Hue bulbs to change their color and light intensity.
- Bluetooth Mesh: Mesh is a networking topology which allows establishing many-to-many device connections/communications. Currently, a Bluetooth device can support four to eight concurrent connections:
As IoT capabilities grow, we will need to control dozens of devices via a single connection and Bluetooth Mesh can help us in doing just that:
Bluetooth 5 will be a key turning point in Bluetooth Mesh networking due to its offering of quadrupled range.