!!!Bluetooth 4.1 Released!!!

!!!Bluetooth 4.1 Released!!!

Bluetooth 4.1(also called as Low Energy Bluetooth) is out and very few of us know what new features it has. Firstly, check the compatible list in the post to see whether your device have bluetooth 4.0 or not. Talking about bluetooth 4.1, it is a new innovation in the field of radio signals, the main advantage that bluetooth 4.1 has over other version is its low energy consuming capability, this version of bluetooth can work for 6 months continously on just a button cell. This capability allows the user to actually keep his bluetooth always “on” instead of switching it from time to time. This was made possible by the technology of “Unidirection(unscattered) Spectrum”. Being specific, bluetooth and all other radio communication devices work on the technology of “radio waves”, they emit radio waves in all the directions(360 degree) and the receiver receives it. This feature though was quite good, but consumed alot of energy and the speed of data transfer was also low, but the new method called “narrow spectrum” was applied in bluetooth 4.0 which now spreads its spectrums in narrower way instead of “broadway spectrum”. This version was announced in the year 2009 but was realeased a bit later. 

The devices which come with this version of bluetooth are...

Windows Phone

These are set of nokia phones that are equipped with this version, telling the truth, bluetooths give thier best in nokia phones!

• Nokia Lumia (520, 620, 625, 720, 820, 920,925, 928, 1020, 1320, 1520)

Android

Android usually provides us with various application that can make your bluetooth work on a lower energy, but thats no the truth, and this feature is only given by 4.0

• Sony (Xperia V, Xperia Z, Xperia SP, Xperia L, Xperia M, Xperia Z Ultra, Xperia Z1, Xperia C)
• Casio (Gz'One Commando 4G LTE)
• Samsung (Galaxy S3, S3 Mini, Galaxy S4, S4 Mini, Note 2 and Note 3)
• LG (Nexus 4, Nexus 5, Optimus G, 4X, G2 and up)
• HTC (One, One Mini, One Max, Desire 300, Desire 601, Desire 500, Butterfly S)
• XIAOMI (Mi2 and up)

Apple

• iPhone 4s and later
• iPad 3 and later
• iPod Touch 5
• iPad mini (from its introduction)

BlackBerry

• BlackBerry Z10
• BlackBerry Q10
• BlackBerry Q5
• BlackBerry Z30

Operating systems

• iOS 5 and later
• Windows Phone 8
• Android 4.3 and later
• BlackBerry 10

The differnces between the other versions of bluetooth and this version is as follows.....

Technical Specification	Classic Bluetooth technology	Bluetooth low energy technology
Distance/Range	100 m (330 ft)	50 m (160 ft)
Over the air data rate	1–3 Mbit/s	1 Mbit/s
Application throughput	0.7–2.1 Mbit/s	0.27 Mbit/s
Active slaves	7	Not defined; implementation dependent
Security	56/128-bit and application layer user defined	128-bit AES with Counter Mode CBC-MAC and application layer user defined
Robustness	Adaptive fast frequency hopping, FEC, fast ACK	Adaptive frequency hopping, Lazy Acknowledgement, 24-bit CRC, 32-bit Message Integrity Check
Latency (from a non-connected state)	Typically 100 ms	6 ms
Total time to send data (det.battery life)	100 ms	3 ms], <3 ms
Voice capable	Yes	No
Network topology	Scatternet	Star-bus
Power consumption	1 as the reference	0.01 to 0.5 (depending on use case)
Peak current consumption	<30 mA	<15 mA
Service discovery	Yes	Yes
Profile concept	Yes	Yes
Primary use cases	Mobile phones, gaming, headsets, stereo audio streaming, automotive, PCs, security, proximity, healthcare, sports & fitness, etc.	Mobile phones, gaming, PCs, watches, sports and fitness, healthcare, security & proximity, automotive, home electronics, automation, Industrial, etc.

Hence we can see that though it consumes lesser energy then other versions, but it does not offers the key features of bluetooth like audio gateway, phone calling. Even its transfer rate is very slow, hence the innovators have to think something fast to eradicate these drawbacks or else they are not going to have sponsers of this advancement!!!