How has Bluetooth Technology Improved over Time

Bluetooth technology has now quite a role to play in our daily lives. Most portable gadgets we have these days come with this patent technology that allows us to send and receive video, audio, and data files. Our modern mobile phones, headphones, smartwatches, and various other devices are equipped with Bluetooth providing extra utility to the users.

While we remember in our childhood that Bluetooth transfer would take ages, now we are able to play media files with the real-time transfer of data at a much faster rate. The applications are now being developed around the use of this technology and this vastly used technology has evolved substantially with multiple Bluetooth revisions being released over time.  

History of Bluetooth Technology

It was in the late 1990s where Bluetooth technology was discovered by a Bluetooth Special Interest Group. They overlooked the development and licensing of this patent technology and provided this functionality to multiple mobile companies at that time. Today, this group has more than 30,000 active members making the most out of this technology and creating business for themselves.

The Bluetooth connection operates at 2.4 GHz frequency band over a short-range usually around 30 meters. The mobiles phones deployed with Bluetooth came to the surface in 2000 and it was prevalently seen until 2004. It was a Bluetooth 2.0 version back then and provided 3 Mbit/s speed using Enhanced Data Rate Technology.  

Then in 2007, came the Bluetooth 2.1 version where Bluetooth pairing between the devices was simplified with the use of Simple Secure Pairing. The encryption provided much better security to Bluetooth devices and also enhanced the scanning of Bluetooth devices with Extended Inquiry Response.

Then a revolution in speed 11 times quicker occurred in 2009 with the release of Bluetooth 3.0 technology. Large data transfers were made possible with the deployment of 802.11 wifi link and power consumption by Bluetooth was also drastically reduced. With such kind of optimization regarding speed and battery consumption, it was destined to be the top priority mode of wireless data transfer over a short-range.

Only a year after this, Bluetooth 4.0 was introduced in the market where it was called Bluetooth Smart. It made possible the smart devices to deploy Bluetooth technology like Sensors and medical devices while using built-in small cells to provide power. Bluetooth was then operating at much less power than consumed previously.    

Profiling of Bluetooth devices with Generic Attribute Profile was also done and a Security Manager was also introduced in Bluetooth 4.0 version. In 2013 and 2014, consecutive new versions of Bluetooth releases were made Bluetooth 4.1 and Bluetooth 4.2 respectively.

There were some major improvements to the Bluetooth software that was being used. It laid the foundation of IoT devices and started to make connections through the Cloud. Bluetooth and LTE radios were also getting along at this time. The major Bluetooth technology improvement took place with the use of use Internet Protocol version 6 (IPv6) in Bluetooth 4.2 version. The speed and privacy were greatly optimized with this version release.  

The latest Bluetooth update was made in 2016 with Bluetooth 5.0 version release. It was greatly optimized for IoT devices and there was a significant increase in range, speed of transfer, and capacity of data. Bluetooth is one of the most widely used global technologies and can be observed rigorously in our daily lives. We hope much better releases and optimization will be done in the near future by SIG.