The Bluetooth Special Interest Group (SIG), in a bid to address the increased adoption of Bluetooth mesh networking in Smart Home solutions, has formed a new Smart Home Subgroup. The announcement follows the decision from a growing number of market leaders to adopt Bluetooth mesh networking as a strategic communications protocol for smart home solutions.
The new Smart Home Subgroup has been established to create additional Bluetooth mesh model specifications for smart home and related applications. Mesh models constitute the application layer of Bluetooth mesh networking and define the behavior of devices connected to a Bluetooth mesh network. For example, mesh models define how a Bluetooth mesh light is controlled by a Bluetooth mesh switch. Like all Bluetooth technology specifications, the mesh models developed by this subgroup will be available to all member companies for use in conjunction with the Bluetooth mesh networking specifications, thereby enabling multi-vendor interoperability in the smart home.
Over 60 member companies are participating in the new Smart Home Subgroup including Alibaba, GCT Semiconductor, Lierda, MediaTek, Midea Group IoT Company, Nordic Semiconductor, Novel Bits, S-Labs, Telink Semiconductor, Synopsys, UL Verification Services, and Xiaomi.
Bluetooth Mesh is one of the IoT protocols being used for smart home and building. It facilitates flexible deployment of smart device networks with elastic extension and lower latency, and thus brings better user experiences with rich smart life scenes. From smart lighting, smart home, smart building to smart city, the possibility for Bluetooth mesh is limitless. With the proliferation of voice assistant devices and AIoT everywhere, the technology sees continued development to meet the rapidly growing demand for advanced connectivity and truly intelligent smart home experiences.
Launched in July of 2017, Bluetooth mesh was created to enable the deployment of large scale device networking solutions, such as those used in control, monitoring, and automation systems. It was developed from the beginning to meet the strict reliability, security, and performance needs of industrial and commercial markets. Since its launch, over 105 products with Bluetooth mesh networking capability have been qualified from leading silicon, stack, component, and end product vendors (a complete list of Bluetooth mesh qualified products can be found here).
