iOS Device & Bluetooth

Question

Does anyone know the maximum data transfer rate between an external Bluetooth device and an iPhone / iPad (4S onwards).

I read that enchanced data rates in BT3.0 were 24Mbs - can the iPhone support this?

What is the maximum data possible using BT4.0 LTE?

Thanks guys!

Answer 1

iPhone / iPad is Bluetooth 4.0 The data rate depends on the version of the devices involved. Typically Classic Bluetooth data rate is 2.0 or 3.0 Mbps theoretical over the air bit rate. Will will translate to around 1.5-2.0 Mbps application level throughput. You can expect this rate on the iPhone / iPad (depending on the profile you use and the remote device)

What you have mentioned is for BT 3.0 + HS (High Speed) 24 Mbps etc is achieved by using the 802.11 as the underlying mac for Bluetooth stack / profiles. High Speed is not supported on the iPhone / iPad.

BT 4.0 (in LE mode) is primarily for sensor devices that need very low power , so data rate is not the focus with LE (but battery life of year is) the application max data rate is around 300 Kbps. (You should not use LE when you have high data to send - use Bluetooth Classic instead), LE is optimized for small intermittent data transfers.

Answer 2

I am afraid the answer is a bit misleading. The over-the-air data speed is a nice number, but not a measurement which reflects real life net data rate.

For example, classic BT2.0, 2.1 net data SPP connection speed is around 128kbps (this is what the BT standard requires), instead of 2-3Mbps. To make it worse, most of the handheld devices can not sustain even this scaring low bit rate. Yesterday I found a tablet from a brand, allowing 24kbps max speed. iOS classic bt speed records are around 6kbps.