Bluetooth Mesh has no Alternative

Being entangled in day-to-day challenges and information noise, it is easy to lose proper perspective. So sometimes it is really good to take a step back and have a serious look at fundamentals. Surprisingly (or may be not...) the question of "protocol wars" keeps coming back on many occasions. People feel unsafe, still trying to bet on something new or want to be reassured about a decision they have made.

So Bluetooth mesh in commercial buildings. What makes it so good and why it is here to stay (and grab majority of the market)? Well, without diving into the details it is sufficient to say that it just works. And it is secure and easy to use. This does not sound like a rocket science. But actually is there is a technology that is so seamless to the extent that we simply forget there are any challenges related to it, and it is easy to use, you have a winning combination.

So what are the challenges of low power wireless in buildings (and in professional lighting in particular)? Well, tons of them. In a nutshell the challenge is an erratic behavior of wireless connectivity. Latency, delays, popcorn effects, desynchronized groups, you name it. It works, but not always. Erratic. Bluetooth mesh has been designed from the grounds up to avoid erratic behavior. It does that mostly by using proactive oversampled messaging and a decentralized / distributed architecture. And of course there is the resilient, multi-channel Bluetooth Low Energy radio underneath. The net effect is it just works. Regardless if there are three lamps or three thousand.

Security in Bluetooth mesh comes in three arts. Firstly, it is a fully open protocol, so there is no risk of a vendor lock-in. Devices are interchangeable, as long as they offer the same set of capabilities. Secondly, it is a fully open protocol, so thanks to this transparency, anyone can analyze it and decide if it is secure or not. And independent researchers have voted thumbs up. And thirdly, it comes will all security best practices built in: security features are mandatory in Bluetooth mesh.

And then there is the ease of use coming from the fact a phone / tablet app can connect directly to Bluetooth devices. It can discover them, authenticate, test, configure, control and troubleshoot. Bluetooth is the only technology capable of doing that. To the extent that other competing technologies all add Bluetooth as their discovery / configuration interface. But Bluetooth mesh does that natively and can do at any time, even after the device has been already provisioned and configured.

Wireless in buildings is still in an ascent, and this means there is a huge market potential. Why so late you may ask? After all connecting lights does not sound like rocket science. Maybe not. But before Bluetooth mesh there had been no technology applicable for this application. And there is no other on the horizon.