On September 4, the Bluetooth Technology Alliance (SIG) released the Bluetooth 6.0 core specification. One of the eye-catching updates is the Bluetooth "channel detection" function. This technology is expected to bring significant distance awareness to billions of future Bluetooth devices and accessories, achieving centimeter-level positioning accuracy, thereby helping users find lost items more quickly and accurately.
In short, the birth of Bluetooth 6.0 may bring earth-shaking changes to your experience of "finding things" and "opening doors"! Imagine that when your Bluetooth headset mysteriously disappears, you can find exactly where it is hidden in the crack of the sofa. When you are close to the door, Bluetooth can provide a safer and seamless unlocking experience based on the location of your phone.
Let's take a look at the new features in Bluetooth 6.0:
- Bluetooth channel detection:
Bluetooth channel detection can provide users with centimeter-level positioning services, greatly broadening the application market of Bluetooth positioning and enabling Bluetooth to accurately sense the distance of devices. At the same time, Bluetooth channel detection improves security by counteracting relay attacks through auxiliary ranging methods and distance constraints based on round-trip time. This function is expected to provide electronic products with more accurate positioning capabilities and secure transmission performance. In previous articles, we have introduced the principles of this technology.
- Decision-based advertising filtering:
Users can use this new feature to let the Bluetooth LE controller filter duplicate advertising packets. When this feature is activated, the Bluetooth 6.0 device will only receive one advertising packet from each unique device, which can improve the efficiency of the device.
- Monitor advertisers:
The host component of the observer device can instruct the Bluetooth LE controller to filter duplicate advertising packets.
- Isochronous Adaptation Layer (ISOAL) Enhancement:
The Isochronous Adaptation Layer (ISOAL) enables larger data frames to be transmitted in smaller link layer packets and ensures that the relevant timing information required by the receiver to correctly process the data can be reconstructed, which can reduce latency and improve reliability.
- LL Extended Feature Set:
Devices can exchange more information about the link layer functions they support.
- Frame Interval Update:
Earlier versions of the Bluetooth core specification defined a constant value of 150 µs for the interval between adjacent data packet transmissions. In the Bluetooth core specification version 6.0, this frame interval is negotiable and can be shorter or longer than 150 µs.
Bluetooth technology is widely used in mainstream electronic consumer products due to its performance and price advantages. It can be said that it is the short-range wireless transmission technology with the highest market share. Bluetooth technology is widely used in common Bluetooth headsets, smart phones, and various types of computers in our lives. After the Bluetooth 6.0 specification brings channel detection function, it will provide a new way to achieve high-precision positioning for devices that are not yet equipped with ultra-wideband chips. Not only does it bring new opportunities to hardware manufacturers and developers, but the new application of technology will also bring new convenience to consumers.
So when can we use new devices that support the Bluetooth 6.0 standard? At present, according to information from chip manufacturers, with the release of the Bluetooth 6.0 core standard, Tailingwei announced that its overall solution based on the latest SoC chip has taken the lead in integrating Bluetooth detection technology. At the same time, Nordic also announced that it will support this technology in the upcoming nRF54L and nRF54H series system-level chips (SoC). It is imagined that many manufacturers will join this sequence in the future. As consumers, we still need to wait patiently for a while if we want to use this technology.