Why Bluetooth 5 not Sub 1 GHz

[kordi]

Hello!!! Please tell me why for example Bluetooth or Bluetooth 5 Mesh would be better in living rooms (buildings?) than Sub 1 GHz (868 or 433 MHz for example) such as Sub1 GHz also have Mesh 6lowpan, etc. Than you can attract the customer exactly on Bluetooth 5:). And is it possible to make Bluetooth Mesh on Bluetooth 5 and will appear sometime this decision.

[ovrebekk]

Hi

First off, it is important to mention that Bluetooth mesh has nothing to do with Bluetooth 5. It is only accidental that the two were released at more or less the same time ;)

Bluetooth mesh will run on Bluetooth 4.0 stacks without problems, and don't use any features from Bluetooth 5.

As for advantages/disadvantages compared to sub GHz, here are a couple:

1. The main advantage of anything Bluetooth related is that most modern smart phones and PC's have native support for BLE. With Bluetooth mesh there are ways for phones to access the mesh network, while you would need a gateway for a phone to access a sub GHz network.

2. The 2.4GHz band is available world wide, so you don't have to use different frequency bands for different regions

3. It is usually easier and cheaper to design a 2.4GHz antenna and board, especially if small size is a priority.

4. Low power end nodes are more power friendly with BT mesh, since the 2.4GHz packets are much shorter. For the normal mesh nodes the difference , as they keep the radio on most of the time.

5. Security is a big focus for BT mesh, and is mandatory. If you pick a sub GHz solution that is not necessarily the case.

The main advantage of sub GHz networks is that range is significantly higher, and the signal will get much less affected by walls and other obstacles (metal and water in particular is problematic for 2.4GHz signals). For this reason sub GHz is often used in industrial applications, where long range and high reliability is critical.

Best regards
Torbjørn Øvrebekk

[kordi]

Thank you very much for the reply!!!