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08/07/2026 7:06 pm
TL;DR: UWB delivered better stability and average accuracy than Bluetooth Channel Sounding in noisy real-world conditions, according to Comarch’s office tests, while Bluetooth could improve but often at higher power cost. The practical takeaway is that ranging quality is now a trade-off between accuracy, stability, and energy budget, not a simple protocol choice.
NHIMG editorial — based on content published by Comarch: a comparison of Bluetooth Channel Sounding and UWB in real-world distance measurement
By the numbers:
- With over 6,000 skilled technical employees worldwide, Comarch is a globally recognized and stable provider of comprehensive software and hardware services.
- The selected Bluetooth module showed a 20-30% error at shorter distances, escalating to 60% at longer ranges.
- For UWB, the experiment measured 0.75 mA average current and 98.5 mA peak current in Tag mode.
Questions worth separating out
Q: How should teams use wireless ranging in access decisions?
A: Use wireless ranging as a signal, not proof.
Q: Why do UWB and Bluetooth Channel Sounding produce different results in offices?
A: Offices create reflections, interference, and signal variation that affect ranging accuracy.
Q: What do security teams get wrong about proximity-based trust?
A: The common mistake is assuming a distance measurement is objective enough to justify access on its own.
Practitioner guidance
- Define an acceptable ranging error band Set a maximum tolerated distance error before the signal can be used in access, device trust, or location logic.
- Test in the noisiest deployment environment Measure performance where interference, reflections, and adjacent wireless systems are present.
- Separate sensing from authorisation Use ranging as one input to a broader decision model rather than a direct access grant.
What's in the full article
Comarch's full analysis covers the operational test details this post intentionally leaves for the source:
- The exact module settings used for UWB and Bluetooth Channel Sounding during the experiments.
- The full measurement table showing distance readings, error spread, and stability patterns across test runs.
- The current consumption figures for each configuration, useful if you are balancing ranging quality against battery life.
- The practical commentary on how SDK maturity and configuration choices influenced Bluetooth performance.
👉 Read Comarch's comparison of Bluetooth Channel Sounding and UWB distance measurement →
Bluetooth channel sounding vs UWB: what does it mean for IoT teams?
Explore further
08/07/2026 7:29 pm
Proximity-based trust is only as strong as the measurement model behind it. Wireless distance is often treated as a near-physical fact, but the article shows that the reading is a negotiated output of environment, tuning, and device implementation. That means proximity-based access should be treated as probabilistic assurance, not a binary proof of presence. For security and identity programmes, the practitioner conclusion is simple: never let a distance estimate carry more trust than the measurement system deserves.
A few things that frame the scale:
- The average estimated time to remediate a leaked secret is 27 days, despite 75% of organisations expressing strong confidence in their secrets management capabilities, according to The State of Secrets in AppSec.
- Only 44% of developers are reported to follow security best practices for secrets management, exposing a significant developer behaviour gap.
A question worth separating out:
Q: How do teams choose between UWB and Bluetooth for ranging?
A: Choose based on the business requirement, not protocol reputation. If you need stronger stability and tighter distance accuracy, UWB is the safer fit. If you need a flexible Bluetooth ecosystem and can tolerate more tuning and variance, Channel Sounding may be enough. The key is to match the protocol to the control objective.
👉 Read our full editorial: Bluetooth channel sounding vs UWB for real-world distance measurement
