The Bluetooth Special Interest Group (SIG) unveils a direction-finding feature that holds the potential to significantly enhance the performance of Bluetooth location services solutions. The feature allows devices to determine the direction of a Bluetooth signal, thereby enabling the development of Bluetooth proximity solutions that can understand device direction as well as Bluetooth positioning systems that can achieve down to centimeter-level location accuracy.
Bluetooth location services solutions fall into two categories: proximity solutions and positioning systems. Proximity solutions use Bluetooth to understand when two devices are near each other, and approximately how far apart. They include item finding solutions such as personal property tags, as well as point-of-interest (PoI) information solutions like proximity marketing beacons. By adding the direction-finding feature, Bluetooth proximity solutions can add device direction capability. For example, an item finding solution could not only let a user know when a personal property tag is nearby, but also in what direction.
The direction-finding feature is included in version 5.1 of the Bluetooth Core Specification, which is available to developers as of today. For more illumination, checkout the specification. For more information, visit the Bluetooth SIG.