BT5 real range with iPhone XR

[manu514]

Hello there,

I'm doing some experiments using  a nRF52833 dev kitand an iPhone XR . I followed the example from Testing Long Range (Coded PHY) with Nordic solution. 

When using NRF Connect on iPhone XR I'm able to connect to the dev kit. I see through the debug console the Phy 2M is being used. I have a slightly better range with an iPhone XR (which handles BT5) than with an iPhone 6 (which doesn't).

However the range on iPhone XR is maybe 15~20 meters in normal conditions (with obstacles). I can achieve a range of ~75m in direct line of sight but it is super precarious.

Did anyone was able to achieve greater range than this ? I was hoping to get similar results as in Testing Long Range (Coded PHY) with Nordic solution but I'm quite far from those.

Is it theoretically possible to have a ~100m range (with obstacles) or 500m in direct line of sight using BT5 with an iPhone XR ?

Thanks :) 

[Einar Thorsrud]

Hi,

iPhone X does not support coded PHY (long-range), so the long-range test you refer to is not relevant for your setup. Also, the 2 Mbps PHY will have a shorter range than the 1 Mbps PHY, so what you can do to increase range is to switch to 1M.

[manu514]

Hey Einar!

Thanks for the heads-up about 1Mbps PHY :) 

I understand that iPhone X doesn't support BT5. I thought iPhone XR did though.

[Einar Thorsrud]

The thing is that most Bluetooth features that are added since 4.0 are optional, and currently most BT5 devices do not support long-range.

[JesseJ]

Does any iPhone model support long-range?

[Einar Thorsrud]

As far as I know, there are no iPhones that support long-range at this point.