Difference between Mac Address and Bluetooth Address
Can someone tell me the difference between Mac Address and Bluetooth Address in a BLE device?
Do they both have to be unique? I've read that changing the bluetooth address affects the mac address? Is it possible to have a different bluetooth address, but the same mac address?
Answer
What you are referring to Bluetooth Address is what more popularly known as static address which is a randomly generated address while the MAC address is unique and public.
The MAC address is created as per the IEEE 802-2001 standards in accordance with section 9.2: "48-bit universal LAN MAC addresses". They have a valid Organizationally Unique Identifier (OUI) obtained from the IEEE Registration Authority.
The MAC address is divided into the following two fields:
- company_assigned field is contained in the 24 LSb.
- company_id field is contained in the 24 MSb.
Whereas, A static address is a 48-bit randomly generated address created considering these requirements:
- The two most significant bits of the static address shall be equal to ‘1’
- Not all bits of the random part of the static address shall be equal to ‘1’
- Not all bits of the random part of the static address shall be equal to ‘0’