It’s remarkable to watch the impact that wireless innovation has on our industry. Generations of wireless protocols that have been around for many years continue to evolve to better support new and existing applications. New wireless protocols have also been introduced, taking advantage of the available spectrum or using that spectrum in a more efficient way. We are connecting more devices every year, using data more effectively with more and more options for intelligence at the Edge.
Josh Mickolio, Technology Business Development Manager – IoT, DigiKey explores further.
If we look at just the last five years, 5G was introduced to us in the release 15 specification that was finalised in 2019, followed by releases 16, 17 and now 18, which is the beginning of the ‘5G Advanced’ era. The Bluetooth SIG continued releases in its 5.x variants, with v5.1 in 2019, followed by v5.2 and v5.3, with v5.4 released in 2023. 802.11ax, or ‘Wi-Fi 6’, was introduced in 2021, moving away from the 802.11xx branding, and was followed in 2023 with Wi-Fi 7.
In addition to these three, DECT NR+ and Amazon Sidewalk launched in 2021, and Matter launched in 2022, and that doesn’t even include other upgrades to LoRaWAN, Wi-SUN, Z-Wave, and many others.
The timing of these releases will play a critical role in technology adoption over the next several years. While the pace of innovation has increased, the adoption rate of the technologies introduced right before or during the COVID pandemic has been, according to many in the industry, slower than expected.
The reality is that the adoption rate of technology introduced in the last five years was severely impacted by a lack of supply from 2021 through 2023. Remember the
supply issues, with engineers desperately trying to find alternatives to hard-to-find components or re-designing to work around supply constraints? Wi-Fi 4/5, Bluetooth 4.x/5.0, and 4G/LTE were the dominant releases heading into the pandemic.
We are an impatient industry, and forecasts for technology adoption may be higher than actual performance during some years. The good news is that while certain technologies may not meet expectations over a period, there is a next-generation wireless boom on the horizon. As the markets struggle with delays in adoption and weak forecasts, we’ll look at a few critical points that are driving adoption.
First, let’s compare the key performance and functionality improvements to the state of these technologies in 2020. So many customers missed out on an entire generation of new products, and this seems to be the fairest comparison, as availability didn’t truly stabilise until mid-2023 in many areas.
Incumbent: 4G/LTE
What’s new? LTE Cat 1 bis. 4G/LTE is still the dominant technology in many regions for cellular IoT connections despite being introduced over 15 years ago. Cat 1 bis introduces significant cost savings by only requiring one antenna. Cat 1 bis is a great
candidate to replace legacy 2G IoT connections, which is still supported in many countries, largely in Europe. 2G networks will start to see their sunset in many markets starting as early as next year, Cat 1 bis offers a readily deployable solution with broad global coverage.
Next Gen: 5G
What’s new? 5G RedCap. The headline with 5G is speed and spectrum utilisation. Many carriers and markets have deployed non-standalone (NSA) 5G, with standalone (SA) networks still being rolled out in many countries. While in-band 5G NR deployments for eMTC and NB-IoT were defined in 3GPP release 16, release 17
defined the 5G ‘NR-Light’ devices that offer our first valid transition path to 5G for 4G Cat 1 and Cat 4 devices.
Many people take Bluetooth for granted. The feature set of the Bluetooth spec and the chips that support it often go unnoticed.
Incumbent: Bluetooth 4.0
What’s new? Bluetooth 5.0 was a big step up from previous variants. The 5.0 spec was faster, offering nearly twice the speed as previous versions and introducing longer-range transmission.
Next Gen: New Versions
What’s new? 5.1 introduced better positioning services with direction-finding and power-saving measures. For those that utilise mesh networking or beacons/asset tracking with previous versions, v5.1 was a major upgrade. Bluetooth v5.2 brought a significant upgrade to audio capability, known as LE Audio, enabling streaming in connected and broadcast modes.
The enhancements in v5.3 included better security, efficiency, and stability. At the same time, v5.4 offers periodic advertising with responses or PAwR, offering a viable way for a Bluetooth access point to securely communicate with a lot of end nodes bi-directionally.
Wi-Fi is the last on this list, but that doesn’t mean it has lacked in the upgrades, quite the opposite. I wanted to spend some time on this category because the stickiness with older generations is very strong, and the life cycles of these older generations are on the downhill side of the growth curve.
Incumbent: Wi-Fi 4 (802.11n) and Wi-Fi 5 (802.11ac)
What’s new? Wi-Fi 4 was launched way back in 2009, supporting the 2.4GHz and 5GHz bands. Version 5 brought higher speed operation to the gigabit range in the 5GHz band. Gen: Wi-Fi 6/6e (801.11ax), Wi-Fi 7 (802.11be) along with HaLow (802.11ah).
What’s new? Wi-Fi 6 is a major upgrade from 4 and 5, not only due to the enhanced speed but also to the fact that it helps to alleviate frequency overcrowding, which was often a hurdle with previous generations. The efficiency and multiple bands supported (including the 6GHz band in 6E) offer lower latency and scalability and better power savings by allowing devices to spend more time asleep.
Wi-Fi 7 brings the speed up again by using 4K QAM modulation vs Wi-Fi 6’s 1024 QAM, with larger channel bandwidth. HaLow is a unique piece of technology in that it operates in the sub-GHz frequency range, offering longer range and better penetration as well as longer battery life.
In summary, we looked at a few upgrades available but there is so much more with these technologies and others we didn’t get a chance to talk about here. It’s not only the upgrade in performance and function driving new designs; legacy connected devices often use out-of-date security measures and could be a liability to your company if not managed correctly, considering the new regulatory requirements being enacted in various regions.
COVID had an impact in slowing the adoption rate, but the level of design activity we are seeing now looks like it may make up for it and then some.
Author: Josh Mickolio, Technology Business Development Manager – IoT, DigiKey
This article originally appeared in the October 24 magazine issue of IoT Insider.
