2x Speed
- 2M PHY
- Up to 1400 kbps throughput
- 15 to 50% lower power
4x Range
- 2x range at 125 kbps PHY
- 2x range at +20 dBm TX
8x Advertisement Capacity
- Up to 255 B of data per packet
- Chaining of multiple advertisement packets
- Offload advertisement packets to data channels
Increasing Throughput with the 2M PHY
Bluetooth 5 adds a secondary PHY. This 2M PHY is twice as fast as the 1M PHY in Bluetooth 4. The 2M PHY is optional to support, allowing devices that implement this feature to be backwards compatible with devices by falling back to the 1M PHY.
| PHY | Symbol Rate | Packet Time | Maximum Throughput |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1M | 1M symbols/s | 0.08 to 2.12 ms | 800 kbps |
| 2M | 2M symbols/s | 0.04 to 1.06 ms | 1438 kbps |
By reducing the transmission time for the same amount of data, IoT devices can remain in low power sleep modes for a longer duration. This can average current savings between 15% and 50%.
Sample Current Consumption Measurements on EFR32 Blue Gecko SoC
1M PHY
357 uA average current consumption with 80 us packet
2M PHY
304 uA average current consumption with 44 us packet
Extending Range by Up to 4x
Bluetooth 5 provides an option of two new long range PHYs with a 1M symbols per second symbol rate. With a lower data throughput applications can significantly increase range with this capability.
| Coded PHY | Range Multiplier | Symbol Rate | Packet Time | Maximum Throughput |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 125 kbps | 2x | 1M symbols/s | 0.72 to 17.04 ms | 112 kbps |
| 500 kbps | 1.5x | 1M symbols/s | 0.46 to 4.52 ms | 382 kbps |
Expanding Advertisement Capacity by 8x
While maintaining backwards compatibility, Bluetooth 5 introduces significant improvements to the capacity of advertisement sets. With 8x the capacity of previous versions Bluetooth 5 can make use of any Bluetooth 5 data channels for the purpose of secondary advertisement sets. Secondary advertisement channels can transmit up to 255 bytes of data per packet and can also be chained. Primary advertisement channels continue to use the Bluetooth 4 compatible 1M PHY.
Bluetooth 5 also introduces a feature called advertisement sets. These allow a single Bluetooth radio to send out multiple individual advertisements. This enables the development of a single device that can operate as both an Apple® iBeacon™ and a Google® EddyStone™ beacon.