Industrial Bluetooth Market - Drivers and Forecasts

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Technavio analysts forecast the global industrial Bluetooth market to grow at a CAGR of almost 3% during the forecast period, according to their latest report.

The research study covers the present scenario and growth prospects of the global industrial Bluetooth market for 2017-2021. The market is segmented based on communication mode (single-mode module and dual-mode module) and geography (the Americas, EMEA, and APAC).

The industrial Bluetooth is a low cost, low power, short range communication technology intended to replace cable communication. Industrial Bluetooth is the foremost option for short-range radio frequency communication. This low power technology provides a mechanism for making small wireless networks on an ad-hoc basis known as piconets. A collection of Bluetooth devices in the nearby physical proximity operating on the same channel and using same frequency hopping sequence is known as a piconet.

Technavio industrial automation research analysts highlight the following three factors that are contributing to the growth of the global industrial Bluetooth market:

• Increasing adoption of wireless technology for industrial automation
• Increase in ease of controlling and monitoring through Bluetooth Smart devices
• AFH for reduced interference in wireless communication
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Increasing adoption of wireless technology for industrial automation

With the advances in technology, the concern for automating processes in the industries is also increasing. Adoption of wireless technology in the industrial communication system helps the industries to cope up with the advances. One such technology in wireless communication technology is Bluetooth. There are different versions of Bluetooth available in the market such as Bluetooth 4.0, Bluetooth 4.2, and Bluetooth 5.0.

Raghav Bharadwaj Shivaswamy, a lead automation research analyst at Technavio, says, “Bluetooth Smart technology may also be considered as a revolution in the wireless technology in industrial applications. Bluetooth is an industrial grade technology that offers industrial customers low cost, low power, secure, and reliable option to transfer information in any environment, as the Bluetooth devices are mostly enabled with a special feature like AFH.”

Increase in ease of controlling and monitoring through Bluetooth Smart devices

Bluetooth Smart is the latest generation, low power version of the classic Bluetooth technology. Bluetooth Smart devices are enabled with coin cell batteries that support them to run for several years. Its low-power capability enables deployment of sensors without replacement for several years. These batteries use energy harvesting techniques to avoid replacement, thus making them suitable for harsh or remote industrial environments.

“Bluetooth Smart Ready is another technology that eliminates the use of the gateway and enables communication between industrial equipment and smartphones or tablets. This helps in controlling and monitoring even the remote devices on the factory floor. It increases the simplicity of the workers to operate and monitor industrial equipment, as they can operate through a smart phone by eliminating the complex Human Machine Interface,” adds Raghav.

AFH for reduced interference in wireless communication

Interference in wireless communication is a widespread problem in wireless technologies. Industrial Bluetooth operates on the same unlicensed 2.4 GHz ISM (Industrial, Scientific, and Medical) radio band as Wireless Local Area Network (WLAN). Unlicensed signifies that technologies are free to operate in this frequency band, which has given rise to interference affecting the quality of communication.

In the initial stages of development of Bluetooth technology, Bluetooth devices used 79 of the 83.5 available channels in the 2.4 GHz band, randomly hopping across these channels at a rate of 1600 times per second. Occasional collisions were inevitable when another wireless device was introduced. Development of AFH helped in reducing this interference and improved the quality of communication Hence, the market for industrial Bluetooth is significantly influenced by AFH technology and is propelling the market to grow.