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Bluetooth 5 2Mbps Demo with nRF52 Series and Samsung Galaxy S8

John Leonard

Bluetooth 5 - now arriving in smartphones

As we know, Bluetooth 5 was launched last December by the Bluetooth SIG. The nRF52 Series from Nordic have always had Bluetooth 5 and its arrival in the mix for the nRF52 Series and this family of SoCs was designed early on to be able to meet the exciting new features of Bluetooth 5. Smartphones play such a key role in most Bluetooth products that their adoption of new Bluetooth features is always eagerly anticipated, as this is fundamental to the use of new Bluetooth features.

The Big News: Samsung Galaxy S8 supports Bluetooth 5 2Mbps

This is big news because over 90% of all Bluetooth low energy applications have a smartphone as either, a part of their primary use-case, or as a secondary use-case. The phone is part of the application. Therefore, when significant changes come to Bluetooth technology, we cannot really put the benefits into the hands of the public until the phones have support for it. Samsung, the world’s biggest phone maker by volume released their flagship Samsung Galaxy S8 a few weeks ago, and it has Bluetooth 5!

We got our hands on one as fast as we could and decided to make something really cool to demonstrate where Bluetooth 5’s great new features can take us.

Our demo: Moving images over Bluetooth 5

We wanted something that clearly demonstrated what Bluetooth 5’s new high throughput mode means. What could be better than trying to push moving images across a technology associated with simple sensor measurement and actuation communication? Therefore, that is what we did. So check out the video below for yourself, and get excited about the possibilities of Bluetooth 5.

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  • Hi Yacire, To answer your questions in order:

    Yes, it is possible to use all 3 features within an application but not of course at exactly the same time. There is a PHY level switchover going from 2Mbps to say 125kbps for the long range mode, for example.

    To put this in context, perhaps you have an outside camera relaying to a display behind the door in the hallway, this might run at at 2 Mbps when the doorbell is pressed. The doorbell button itself might connect over long range mode at 125kbps to a central home alarm unit to inform someone has pressed the doorbell.

    These two operations would run in the same application, but there would be an switchover on the device between the PHYs (very quick and completely transparent to the user). The same principle applies to the use of Advertising Extensions.

    The peak power remains pretty much the same for any of these operations so from peak power perspective, yes, unchanged and still very low. when we look at average power then to go to 2Mbps your on-air time will typically be halved, and so will your average energy consumption, so here even less power.

    In long range the on air bit time is longer as it will typically be at 125kbps, so average current used per bit will be x 8. However long range will largely be used for sensing/actuating functions requiring short packets transmitted infrequently, so overall current consumption should still average out as very low.

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  • Hi Yacire, To answer your questions in order:

    Yes, it is possible to use all 3 features within an application but not of course at exactly the same time. There is a PHY level switchover going from 2Mbps to say 125kbps for the long range mode, for example.

    To put this in context, perhaps you have an outside camera relaying to a display behind the door in the hallway, this might run at at 2 Mbps when the doorbell is pressed. The doorbell button itself might connect over long range mode at 125kbps to a central home alarm unit to inform someone has pressed the doorbell.

    These two operations would run in the same application, but there would be an switchover on the device between the PHYs (very quick and completely transparent to the user). The same principle applies to the use of Advertising Extensions.

    The peak power remains pretty much the same for any of these operations so from peak power perspective, yes, unchanged and still very low. when we look at average power then to go to 2Mbps your on-air time will typically be halved, and so will your average energy consumption, so here even less power.

    In long range the on air bit time is longer as it will typically be at 125kbps, so average current used per bit will be x 8. However long range will largely be used for sensing/actuating functions requiring short packets transmitted infrequently, so overall current consumption should still average out as very low.

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