While the majority of smartphones these days officially support it, a large number of smartphones are missing key functionalities defined in the Bluetooth 5 specification. This was recently highlighted in post on Reddit which caught our attention. Bluetooth 5 brings many new improvements and optimizations, but several of them are sadly optional. What this means is that smartphone manufacturers can correctly claim their device supports Bluetooth 5 while missing some of the key improvements in the specification.
One of the important new features that the Bluetooth 5 specification defined is a choice of three PHYs. PHY is an acronym for Physical Layer, which, in essence, is the chipset. At a minimum, chipsets must support LE 1M PHY to support Bluetooth 5. LE 1M PHY is the PHY used in Bluetooth 4 and it has a symbol rate of 1 mega symbol per second (Ms/s). LE 2M PHY, however, doubles this speed at 2 Ms/s. Then there’s LE Coded PHY which provides approximately four times the range of Bluetooth 4 without an increase in power consumption.
What’s key about LE 2M and LE Coded is that, for Bluetooth 5, neither of them are mandatory. This means that manufacturers can provide the same communication abilities as Bluetooth 4, but tout Bluetooth 5 support. While most devices support either LE 2M or LE Coded, the vast majority do not support both.
Using the nRF Connect app from the Google Play Store I tested my Pixel 2 XL phone I saw my phone has LE 2M but not LE Coded. So it has Bluetooth 5 but also not all features. Good to see that many of the newest phones do support it fully.
See www.xda-developers.com/check-b…
#bluetooth5 #bluetooth
from Beiträge von Danie van der Merwe https://ift.tt/2HPVEKo
via IFTTT
One of the important new features that the Bluetooth 5 specification defined is a choice of three PHYs. PHY is an acronym for Physical Layer, which, in essence, is the chipset. At a minimum, chipsets must support LE 1M PHY to support Bluetooth 5. LE 1M PHY is the PHY used in Bluetooth 4 and it has a symbol rate of 1 mega symbol per second (Ms/s). LE 2M PHY, however, doubles this speed at 2 Ms/s. Then there’s LE Coded PHY which provides approximately four times the range of Bluetooth 4 without an increase in power consumption.
What’s key about LE 2M and LE Coded is that, for Bluetooth 5, neither of them are mandatory. This means that manufacturers can provide the same communication abilities as Bluetooth 4, but tout Bluetooth 5 support. While most devices support either LE 2M or LE Coded, the vast majority do not support both.
Using the nRF Connect app from the Google Play Store I tested my Pixel 2 XL phone I saw my phone has LE 2M but not LE Coded. So it has Bluetooth 5 but also not all features. Good to see that many of the newest phones do support it fully.
See www.xda-developers.com/check-b…
#bluetooth5 #bluetooth
from Beiträge von Danie van der Merwe https://ift.tt/2HPVEKo
via IFTTT
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