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Software or Hardware or both: Bluetooth

chris_in_cal over 4 years ago

The Bluetooth standards are:

Bluetooth v4.1 - 2013

Bluetooth v4.2 - 2014

Bluetooth v5.0 - 2016

My Garmin 645/M had (AFAIK) Bluetooth v4.2 when it was released.

A Garmin driver was recently released for this: ANT/BLE/BT 5.04. This is now on my watch.

Does the 645/M have the hardware to use Bluetooth v5.0? Has this new Garmin driver upgraded the 645/M to Bluetooth v5.0?

I'm intrigued that the software version number went from 4.xx to 5.xx

I'm not sure what hardware or software specification there are that determine which Bluetooth version a manufacture can use.

0 chris_in_cal over 4 years ago

From the bluetooth.com site:

Declaration Details

Listing Details

Declaration ID	D047471
Referenced Qualified Designs	124524 (Profile Subsystem) 117586 (Profile Subsystem)
Company	Garmin International, Inc.
Listing Date	2019-08-27
Specification Name	5.0
Wi-Fi Certification ID

Product List

Product Name	Product Website	Product Category	Publish Date	Archive Date	Model Number	Subset ID	Description
Garmin Forerunner® 645 Music	buy.garmin.com/.../	Unique Products	2020-05-31		Forerunner® 645 Music	138068	Easily download up to 500 songs to your watch, and ...

0 tmk2 over 4 years ago

You are confusing bluetooth protocol version with firmware version for the bluetooth chipset.

0 velo877 over 4 years ago in reply to tmk2

So... is the 645M Bluetooth 4.2 or 5.0? And more importantly, can it be expected that a newer watch is going to maintain a better bluetooth connection to headphones than the 645M does/did?

0 chris_in_cal over 4 years ago in reply to tmk2

I don't think tmk2 I am confusing it all, I'm pretty clear that I do not understand the difference. Explain it.

Can a piece of hardware be loaded with software to run the BT 4.2 protocols, and the same hardware later be given a software upgrade that has it running the BT 5.0 protocol? Honestly don't know.

Were devices given a software update that allowed them to move from the BT 4.1 to BT 4.2, or is it always, 100% of the time a different piece of hardware?

0 tmk2 over 4 years ago in reply to velo877

velo877 said:
So... is the 645M Bluetooth 4.2 or 5.0? And more importantly, can it be expected that a newer watch is going to maintain a better bluetooth connection to headphones than the 645M does/did?

I don't know what version it is, and frankly I don't think it matters in this context. In wearable devices transmitting power is ususally reduced anyway to save energy, so it's barely enough to reach from your wrist to your ear. I don't have any knowledge about the bluetooth implementation on the FR645, but I would not expect it to have the maximum range of bluetooth.

0 tmk2 over 4 years ago in reply to chris_in_cal

chris_in_cal said:
I don't think tmk2 I am confusing it all, I'm pretty clear that I do not understand the difference. Explain it.

Firmware version for the ANT/BT/BLE chipset has nothing to do with bluetooth version. It just coincidentally has a 5 at the beginning. Please note that there is no such thing as Bluetooth 5.04. I don't think that bluetooth version can be changed just with a software upgrade. A new chip with new capabilities is required. I'm no specialist on bluetooth, so please someone correct me if I'm wrong.

0 chris_in_cal over 4 years ago in reply to tmk2

"I don't think that bluetooth version can be changed just with a software upgrade. A new chip with new capabilities is required" This is the question. You write "I don't think ..." I write I don't know. Any embedded systems computer engineers reading this?

Can a software upgrade implement a newer bluetooth protocol?