How to Choose Between Low-power Bluetooth 5.0 and WiFi for Smart Homes?

PublishTime： 2022-03-15 Article Source：SKYLAB

In the Internet environment, our life is quietly going smart. One-touch curtain opening and closing in the morning and evening, remote cooking, remote air-conditioning, one-touch door opening, WiFi Module and Bluetooth module also play a lot of roles in the middle. So which is better for the smart home - WiFi, Bluetooth or Zigbe? Now let's see how to choose between low-power Bluetooth 5.0 and WiFi.

Power consumption of WIFI and Bluetooth

Bluetooth 5.0 has a lower transmit power and standby power consumption compared to WiFi. Sharing with 1 device in standby mode, Wi-Fi sharing consumes an average of 10% power for one hour, but Bluetooth consumes 1/3 of the power of WIFI.

Security of WIFI and Bluetooth

Bluetooth also offers two layers of password protection, while WiFi poses the same security risks as other networks. Once someone has gained partial access, they can enter the entire network. In terms of security, Bluetooth 5.0 is superior to WiFi.

Communication distance between WIFI and Bluetooth

The effective distance of traditional Bluetooth is about 10 meters, Bluetooth 5.0 can be up to 150 meters farthest.The effective distance of WiFi is generally 50 ~ 100 meters.WiFi has a valid distance to win traditional Bluetooth but lost to Bluetooth 5.0.

Cost of WIFI modules and Bluetooth modules

Bluetooth 5.0 is smaller and less costly than WiFi modules.

Interference of WiFi and Bluetooth

Bluetooth 5.0 has stronger anti-interference ability, especially for Wi-Fi and LTE signals. It can avoid the "signal congestion" in a limited space to a certain extent, and the mutual interference is lower than that of WiFi. However, both Bluetooth and WiFi use the 2.4GHz band, which is quite crowded. To reduce signal interference, many users choose 5GHz band Wi-Fi instead of 2.4GHz.

Transmission speed of WIFI and Bluetooth

The biggest disadvantage of Bluetooth 5.0 is its low power consumption design, which means that the transmission speed is around 1 ~ 3 Mbps, compared to Wi-Fi (4th generation 802.11n) which can use 2.4GHz or 5GHz, with a bandwidth of 20 and 40MHz at a speed of 72 and 150 Mbps. There is a significant speed difference between the two. Therefore, the transfer speed of Bluetooth 5.0 is not suitable for movie or large file data transfer.

Conclusion: Before choosing the right module, it is important that you compare the above advantages and disadvantages. Choose the right module to get the most out of your product!

Here we recommend: SKYLAB's IOT WiFi module WG223 for smart home, low-power Bluetooth Module SKB501 for smart home.

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