Bluetooth® technology is transforming patient care by enabling safer, cleaner, more efficient healthcare facilities, as well as creating healthier and more comfortable spaces thanks to the deployment of wireless sensors, networked lighting control, and wider human-centered building design incentives.
Earlier this month, the Bluetooth Special Interest Group (SIG), with help from ABI Research, released new market research that looks at how Bluetooth® technology is playing a critical role in improving health and well-being by creating healthier spaces.
The following is an excerpt from that report, Wireless well-being: How Bluetooth® technology is at the heart of healthcare transformation.
Creating healthier spaces
Bluetooth® technology helps create spaces that foster better health and improve the well-being of individuals and communities alike. By improving air quality, optimizing energy use, and ensuring health and safety compliance, Bluetooth® technology helps enable spaces to provide cleaner, more comfortable environments that foster better health and wellness.
Air-quality monitoring
Bluetooth® sensors are widely deployed in smart buildings and urban spaces to monitor air quality in real time. These sensors track pollutants, allergens, CO2 levels, temperature, humidity, vape fumes, and ambient noise across a wide range of environments, providing essential data to help building managers optimize building systems. Some of these are battery powered, enabling up to five years of battery life and can seamlessly connect to their Bluetooth® enabled access points and gateways. By ensuring indoor air quality meets health standards, Bluetooth® technology helps reduce the risk of respiratory
Human-centered building design
Bluetooth® technology helps optimize energy usage in buildings, which not only benefits the environment but also enhances the comfort of visitors and occupants. Bluetooth® sensors regulate heating, cooling, and lighting systems based on occupancy and environmental conditions, ensuring that spaces remain comfortable without wasting energy. By maintaining appropriate temperature and lighting levels, these human-centric systems help reduce stress and fatigue, contributing to the well-being and productivity of those spending time in these spaces.
Occupancy and environmental sensors
Compact, enterprise-level Bluetooth® sensors come equipped with occupancy, ambient light, humidity, and temperature sensors for use within meeting rooms. Thanks to Bluetooth, the device is battery powered and can easily be deployed without rewiring.
Additionally, the ability to connect with other IoT devices can enable it to automatically reserve and release rooms, switch lighting on or off, and adjust the temperature based on occupancy. The solution can also support larger rooms via multiple sensors using Bluetooth® Mesh Networking.
Networked lighting control
Networked lighting control is a significant contributor to human-centered building design incentives, and a wide range of research has proven the benefits of optimal lighting conditions in improving vision, increasing productivity and alertness, enhancing sleep quality and relaxation, accelerating patient recovery, and reducing stress, depending on the needs of the specific environment.
Bluetooth® NLC solutions, including sensors, switches, controllers, and luminaires, are forecasted to achieve a 15 percent CAGR between 2025 and 2030.
According to Bosch, a 28 percent improvement in working conditions can be brought about by proper lighting. The arrival of Bluetooth® Network Lighting Control (NLC), a full-stack standard for wireless lighting control, has accelerated adoption of secure, reliable, and interoperable Bluetooth® NLC solutions. These can play a critical role in optimizing lighting to the specific requirements of each building, while also reducing energy consumption.
The Bluetooth SIG recently adopted the Bluetooth HVAC Integration NLC Profile. This specification standardizes how occupancy data from NLC systems is exchanged with thermostats, enabling greater HVAC automation via Bluetooth® Mesh Networking. Combined with a growing range of Bluetooth® Mesh Networking qualified lighting products, businesses can enable scalable, interoperable networked lighting control and sensing across a range of building types.
Building health management and compliance
By automating the monitoring of sanitation, occupancy, and environmental factors, Bluetooth® sensors alert facility managers when cleaning is needed or when crowding exceeds safe levels, ensuring that spaces stay healthy and meet health and safety compliance standards. In urban settings, those same sensors can also enable environmental monitoring systems to measure noise pollution and other environmental factors, contributing to healthier public spaces and safer, more comfortable environments for everyone.
Some connected washroom solutions leverage Bluetooth® Mesh Networking to provide real-time monitoring, control, and maintenance of restroom assets such as faucets, soap dispensers, urinals, toilets, doors, water mains, and paper dispensers. These Bluetooth® Mesh Networking-equipped fixtures can be used to optimize replenishment, improve staff productivity, reduce downtime, and create more healthy and hygienic environments.
Creating a healthier world
Healthier spaces lead to healthier lives. By improving air quality, optimizing energy use, and ensuring health and safety compliance, Bluetooth® technology helps enable spaces to provide cleaner, more comfortable environments that foster better health and well-being.
To learn more about how Bluetooth technology empowers wellness and personal care, download the latest market research, Wireless well-being: How Bluetooth® technology is at the heart of healthcare transformation.
