The love-hate relationship between Bluetooth 5 and WiFi

It can be said that Bluetooth and Wi-Fi each have their own advantages: Bluetooth has lower power consumption, small size, and low cost, and is suitable for transmitting small amounts of data between several devices; Wi-Fi is characterized by high bandwidth and a larger number of connected devices (different routers have different upper limits on the number of connected devices), and is suitable for transmitting large amounts of data.

However, with the popularity of the Internet of Things, Bluetooth and Wi-Fi have been upgraded one after another, and both are heading to the same battlefield - Bluetooth has been upgraded to version 5.0, which has improved the bandwidth and transmission range; Wi-Fi has launched "Wi-Fi HaLow" to reduce power consumption and extend battery life. Anyone with a discerning eye can see that the focus of the upgrade of the two is what the other party is good at - this means that the functional positioning overlaps, and there is no doubt that they will compete head-on in the consumer and enterprise IoT markets. The following focuses on Bluetooth 5 and WiFi, which work in the 2.4GHz frequency band.

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1. Bluetooth 5

Bluetooth 5 has the following improvements compared to Bluetooth 4.2.

• 4 times the signal range, the theoretical effective working distance is increased from 75 meters to 300 meters.
• 2x connection speed, from 1Mbps to 2Mbps.
• Bluetooth broadcasting transmits 8 times more data, with the maximum length of a single piece of data increasing from 31 bytes to 255 bytes.
• Indoor positioning, Bluetooth 5.0 enhances navigation function, and can achieve indoor positioning with an accuracy of less than 1 meter
• Lower power consumption, because you can choose low speed mode, so the power consumption is lower and the battery life is longer
• Better security and stronger anti-interference. The security of Bluetooth 5.0 reaches the level of US federal safety regulations, ensuring that all Bluetooth devices can meet and exceed strict government safety standards. In addition, Bluetooth 5.0 has stronger anti-interference capabilities, especially for Wi-Fi and LTE signals, which can avoid "signal jams" in limited spaces to a certain extent.

This means:

• The signal transmission distance of Bluetooth can cover an entire apartment or even an entire small building, rather than just a room as in the past.
• Faster transmission speeds make possible more responsive and higher performing Bluetooth devices.
• More stable and reliable Bluetooth connection.
• Longer battery life.
• Better commercial Bluetooth prospects. Greatly enhanced Bluetooth broadcasting makes IoT applications based on Bluetooth beacons more powerful, such as a store pushing advertisements and coupons to the mobile phones of consumers in the store.

2. WiFi

Comparison between 2.4G and 5G frequency bands of WiFi

1. Wider channels with relatively less congestion.

The channels of 2.4G WiFi are as follows.

The channels of 5G WiFi are as follows.

2. Faster transmission rate.

3. Better signal quality.

Since there is less use of WiFi in the 5GHz frequency band in China, radio interference has been greatly reduced. This is only temporary and relative.

However, the penetration of 5G WiFi is not as good as that of 2.4G WiFi.

This means:

• Channels become wider and congestion is reduced
• WiFi has a large throughput, which is very beneficial for the transmission of large amounts of data such as audio and video.

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3. Bluetooth 5 VS WiFi

• Bluetooth 5 is relatively power-saving, but its transmission rate is low and it is not suitable for transmission of large amounts of data.
• Bluetooth 5 has high security and provides two layers of password protection. The security risks of WiFi are the same as other networks and are more vulnerable to attacks.
• Bluetooth 5 is small in size and relatively low in cost.
• Bluetooth 5 has strong anti-interference ability, especially for Wi-Fi and LTE signals, which can avoid "signal jams" in limited spaces to a certain extent, and the mutual interference is lower than WiFi. However, both Bluetooth and WiFi use the 2.4GHz frequency band, which is quite crowded. To reduce signal interference, many users will choose 5GHz band Wi-Fi instead of 2.4GHz.
• Bluetooth 5.0 is a technical specification for the Internet of Things, smart home appliances, and wearable devices. It is ahead of WiFi in these fields. However, WiFi is far ahead in wireless transmission speed and still has an irreplaceable position in large-scale data transmission and mobile network sharing.