Upcoming Bluetooth Enhancements Will Boost Shipments, ABI Says
“Significant” enhancements to Bluetooth will help drive the market for enabled devices to 4.6 billion shipments annually by 2020, from 2.8 billion this year, said ABI Research analyst Andrew Zignani in a Wednesday report. A throughput increase from 1 Mbps…
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to 2 Mbps will reduce latency and increase responsiveness, while providing a “very compelling power consumption ratio” compared with competing technologies including 802.15.4, which tops out at 250 kbps, or the more power-hungry Wi-Fi, Zignani said. Smartphones will remain the bulk of the Bluetooth product market, with 45 percent of shipments in 2020, said ABI, but beacons, smart lighting, home automation and consumer robots will grow to 20 percent of shipments by 2020. Chipset suppliers are working toward integrating IPv6 over Bluetooth Smart, which will help provide the foundation for IP-based application layer-level interoperability between different types of devices operating on different transport layers, said Zignani. As more device types enter the IoT, adopting a common language will become increasingly important to ensure interoperability, he said. The development of Bluetooth and near-field communication combination integrated chips can secure provisioning of IoT devices, Zignani said.