Recently, the Bluetooth Special Interest Group announced that Bluetooth would support for utilizing mesh networking, a large-scale Internet-of-Things (IoT) deployment and building automation. Bluetooth mesh networking involves usage of low-power radio technology for connecting enabled devices, which creates a large-scale interconnected device network. This digital assortment takes a managed floor approach when transmitting simple and reliable messages that are suited for low-power wireless mesh networks, which handle large amounts of diverse traffic.
Bluetooth is essential to the IoT because it’s used to transfer and broadcast information between devices. Adding a mesh network to these capabilities enables users to further utilize smart applications for energy management, building, and industrial automation. The industry for internet-enabled devices is expected to exceed 48 billion installations by 2021, with one-third of them projected to be Bluetooth gadgets and electronics. Bluetooth aspires to influence the connected devices industry by helping form a larger IoT ecosystem.
A potential Bluetooth mesh network being applied to the healthcare industry could help organizations like insurers, hospitals, and other institutions save money and help ease management of automated features. Currently, technology is being utilized in industrial settings to control large-scale physical environments, with current use-cases including building automation, wireless sensor networks, along with asset tracking.
All of these uses have potential in the healthcare industry, as using Bluetooth mesh networking for building automation can help these organizations and institutions automatically control their environments from a centralized location, while eliminating wasted resources caused by human error.
Healthcare organizations and institutions can also use Bluetooth mesh networking to control lighting, climate, and electricity. Wireless sensor networks monitor physical environment conditions and relay that information back to the centralized control panel. Bluetooth mesh networking can assist healthcare establishments in monitoring physical conditions amidst these settings by providing secure connections and providing the network to upgrade and expand.
Healthcare organizations can also benefit from using Bluetooth mesh networking to track assets. Clinicians, for example, can misplace devices, but them being IoT devices connected to the network can ensure these workers could quickly locate anything misplaced. Healthcare organizations can potentially benefit from automation of their physical environments as well, to prevent wasted resources and gain more control over building conditions for clinicians and their patients.
Filed Under: M2M (machine to machine)