In the early days of Bluetooth, you could expect nearly every professional man and woman to have a Bluetooth headset in their ear. The hands-free, wire-free aspect of Bluetooth is perhaps what made it so appealing. Now, Bluetooth is being used in smart homes everywhere to automate, connect and control products using apps. Like Wifi, Bluetooth is a wireless technology and an evolving standard. Bluetooth LE is one such standard, the LE standing for “Low Energy,” and sometimes called “Bluetooth Smart.”

Bluetooth is evolving into a “mesh-capable” wireless solution. Already used in other protocols such as Z-Wave, Mesh is a major enhancement that transforms each device into a repeater that can extend the reach of the Bluetooth signal. Translation: the more mesh devices, the more bullet-proof your network. That’s the opposite of other solutions such as WiFi, which truly needs a new standard that uses mesh networking, as unreliable WiFi is a major challenge in any smart home. At this time, Bluetooth is mainly for single room automation, rather than a whole home solution, as the range of Bluetooth’s signal tends to be around thirty feet or so. Though there is a solution to this problem in Bluetooth range extenders, which can extend the range beyond 100 feet.

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