Bluetooth 4.2 Standard Promises Better Privacy, IPv6 Support and Increased Speed

The Bluetooth Special Interest Group (SIG) on Wednesday announced the new Bluetooth 4.2 standard, which offers enhanced privacy measures, increased speed of data transfers, and an update that will allow Bluetooth Smart sensors to directly access the internet, and more.

The new Bluetooth v4.2 offers speedier data transfers between devices, up to 2.5 times faster than previous versions. The Bluetooth SIG (Special Interest Group), promises that "increased data transfer speeds and packet capacity reduces the opportunity for transmission errors to occur and reduces battery consumption, resulting in a more efficient connection."

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"Bluetooth 4.2 is all about continuing to make Bluetooth Smart the best solution to connect all the technology in your life - from personal sensors to your connected home. In addition to the improvements to the specification itself, a new profile known as IPSP enables IPv6 for Bluetooth, opening entirely new doors for device connectivity," said Mark Powell, executive director of the Bluetooth SIG. "Bluetooth Smart is the only technology that can scale with the market, provide developers the flexibility to innovate, and be the foundation for the IoT."

The new standard, Bluetooth 4.2, is also said to have beefed up privacy features that protects users from being tracked through their Bluetooth devices. For example, when shopping in a retail store with beacons, unless you've enabled permission for the beacon to engage with your device, you can't be tracked.

"The new privacy features put control back into the hands of the consumer by making it difficult for eavesdroppers to track a device through its Bluetooth connection without permission", notes Bluetooth SIG.

Reportedly, we'd start seeing new devices with Bluetooth v4.2 by next year onwards. Stay tuned to GizBot for more updates!