The Bluetooth Special Interest Group (SIG) has released version 5.1 of the Bluetooth Core spezification. This offers a new direction finding feature with direction recognition and centimeter accurate position detection that significantly improves Bluetooth-based location services. It enables the development of Bluetooth proximity solutions that determine the direction of a device and Bluetooth-based positioning systems that achieve an accuracy of a few centimeters.
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Bluetooth-based location services can be divided into two categories: Proximity solutions and positioning systems. Proximity solutions today already use Bluetooth to determine when two devices are near by and how far apart they are. These include device search solutions such as tags for personal items and point-of-interest (PoI) information solutions such as proximity marketing beacons. Beacon PoI systems are used in retail stores, for example.
With the new bearing function, Bluetooth proximity solutions are now also able to detect the direction of the device. A device search system is thus able to tell a user not only when a personal object is nearby, but also in which direction it is located. This significantly improves the benefits of such solutions.
The new version 5.1 of the Bluetooth Core specification is now available for developers and can be found here. In addition, Launch Studio, the Bluetooth SIG's qualification tool for new Bluetooth products, will be updated to support this feature. It is also now available to developers.
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