Bluetooth BQB certification

With years of experience, Deeplight Technology can assist customers in completing RF, profile, and other testing. It can also complete Bluetooth protocol protocol testing that few institutions in the market can do, taking into account BREDR+BLE dual mode testing.

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Bluetooth BQB certification

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Differences between Bluetooth BR/EDR and Bluetooth Smart

Whether you are an ordinary consumer or a person in the technology circle, Bluetooth® must be a familiar word. But if you are a Bluetooth application developer or a technology enthusiast, it is necessary for you to further understand the two main Bluetooth technologies in the Bluetooth core specification: Bluetooth BR/EDR (Bluetooth Basic Rate/Enhanced Data Rate) and Bluetooth Smart technology. This article will comprehensively analyze the difference between these two technologies, and deepen your understanding of Bluetooth technology!

Physical Channel

All radio communications occur over pre-defined channels, and Bluetooth is no exception. However, the channel used by Bluetooth Smart is slightly different from that of Bluetooth BR/EDR, especially when Bluetooth Smart introduces the broadcast channel.

BR/EDR: 79 channels, the channel index is 0 ~ 78, the coverage range is 2400 ~ 2483.5MHz

Bluetooth Smart: 40 channels, the channel index is 0 ~ 39, the coverage range is 2400 ~ 2483.5MHz, of which channels 37, 38 and 39 are broadcast channels.

Brand

There are three types of Bluetooth trademarks, which can be used to distinguish the type of Bluetooth used by the product. Manufacturers use these marks on the product itself or on its packaging.

Maybe you are already familiar with BR/EDR and Bluetooth Smart, but you don‘t know about Bluetooth Smart Ready yet. Bluetooth Smart Ready devices can receive data from other Bluetooth devices, and these data can be converted into useful information by applications on Bluetooth Smart Ready devices, such as smartphones, personal computers, tablets, etc. are all Bluetooth Smart Ready devices.

Power Consumption

Low power consumption is one of the highlights of Bluetooth Smart. Bluetooth Smart devices can run for months or even years on a single coin cell battery. Bluetooth Smart‘s flexible configuration also enables applications to better manage connection intervals to optimize the receiver‘s duty cycle. For Bluetooth BR/EDR, due to its higher data throughput, the power consumption will increase accordingly. For more information on power consumption, please refer to Chapter 4.5 in Volume 6 Part 2 of Bluetooth 4.2 Core Specification Edition.

Topology

BR/EDR supports the piconet (Piconet) of the star network topology, and also supports the distributed network (Scatternet). In a distributed network, each piconet has a master device, and slave devices can participate in different piconets based on time division multiplexing.

Bluetooth Smart4.1 version supports "dual mode", which allows Bluetooth Smart devices to play two roles at the same time: central device (Central) and peripheral device (Peripheral). Devices that support the central role can initiate connections to peripheral devices, and devices that support the central role can also act as peripheral devices to connect with other central devices. It will also support Bluetooth Smart Mesh in the future, and the Bluetooth SIG Smart Mesh working group is working hard to provide prototypes for testing. It is believed that many smart home or industrial automation applications will benefit from Bluetooth Smart Mesh technology.

Development

Bluetooth Smart development is very flexible, and developers can customize applications more flexibly by taking advantage of the profiles adopted by the Bluetooth SIG. No matter what application scenarios developers want to create, flexible configuration file definitions can meet technical needs. On the contrary, BR/EDR technology is relatively mature, and its development is also at the module level, so it is usually only necessary to integrate the module into the product. For example, Bluetooth Smart should be selected when developing Beacon applications, because BR/EDR does not support Beacon applications.

Pairing

Pairing is mandatory for Bluetooth BR/EDR and optional for Bluetooth Smart. Simpler Bluetooth Smart applications may not require pairing.

Throughput

The throughput of Bluetooth Smart is about 1 Mbps (according to the specification), but it also depends on the application scenario. The throughput of Bluetooth BR/EDR is greater than 2Mbps, which is suitable for high-quality audio bit streaming, or other higher bandwidth applications that need to maintain a connection state.

4.x

People often ask, if a Bluetooth headset is compatible with Bluetooth 4.x, does it mean that the headset is low-power? Can Bluetooth Smart be used for audio applications? Now let me explain.

One volume of the Bluetooth 4.x core specification is the Low Energy Controller and the other volume is the Bluetooth BR/EDR Controller. Normally, if the headset supports 4.x, it is compatible with 4.x BR/EDR specification, not compatible with low energy specification or Bluetooth Smart. You can confirm whether it is a Bluetooth Smart product by identifying the Bluetooth Smart trademark on the product package.

Profile

The Generic Attribute Profile (GATT) can be invoked by applications or other profiles to allow the client (client) to interact with the server (server). There are currently many profile definitions built with GATT.

GATT on the website. Disclaimer: Subject to change in 2016

BR/EDR profiles include: Headset (HSP), Object Exchange (OBEX), Audio Transfer (A2DP), Video Transfer (VDP) and File Transfer (FTP). Expect more Bluetooth BR/EDR profiles to be migrated to Bluetooth Smart in the future.

Internet Capability

The Bluetooth SIG provides three methods for accessing the Internet based on Bluetooth Smart technology: RESTFul API, HTTP Proxy Service (HTTP Proxy Service, HPS) and Internet Protocol Support Profile (Internet Protocol Support Profile, IPSP), all of which require a gateway The device is connected. The gateway device can be any device that can connect to the Internet, such as a router, a set-top box, or even a smartphone that is idle at home. The networking capabilities of Bluetooth Smart make the Internet of Things more reliable and more accessible. Recently, Google released the OnHub router, which can connect Bluetooth devices to the Internet.

Finally, I hope this article can help developers understand the main differences between different Bluetooth technologies, so that they can choose the appropriate technology for their applications more specifically.