Bluetooth Low Energy (Bluetooth LE, BLE, marketed as Bluetooth Smart) is a wireless personal area network technology designed and marketed by the Bluetooth Special Interest Group aimed at novel applications in the healthcare, fitness, beacons,security, and home entertainment industries. Compared to Classic Bluetooth, Bluetooth Smart is intended to provide considerably reduced power consumption and cost while maintaining a similar communication range.
Bluetooth Smart was originally introduced under the name Wibree by Nokia in 2006. It was merged into the main Bluetooth standard in 2010 with the adoption of the Bluetooth Core Specification Version 4.0.
Mobile operating systems including iOS, Android, Windows phone and BalckBerry, as well as MacOS, Linux, Windows 8 and Windows 10, natively support Bluetooth Smart. The Bluetooth SIG predicts that by 2018 more than 90 percent of Bluetooth-enabled smartphones will support Bluetooth Smart.
The Bluetooth SIG officially unveiled Bluetooth 5 on June 16, 2016 during a media event in London. One change on the marketing side is that they dropped the point number, so it now just called Bluetooth 5 (and not Bluetooth 5.0 or 5.0 LE like for Bluetooth 4.0). This decision was made allegedly to “simplifying marketing, and communicating user benefits more effectively”.On the technical side, Bluetooth 5 will quadruple the range, double the speed, and provide an eight-fold increase in data broadcasting capacity of low energy Bluetooth transmissions compared to Bluetooth 4.x, which could be important for IoT applications where nodes are connected throughout a whole house.
In 2011, the Bluetooth Special Interest Group (SIG) announced the Bluetooth Smart logo so as to clarify compatibility between the new low energy devices and other Bluetooth devices.
- Bluetooth Smart Ready indicates a dual-mode device compatible with both Classic and low energy peripherals.
- Bluetooth Smart indicates a low energy-only device which requires either a Smart Ready or another Smart device in order to function.
In the New Branding Information (MAY16), the Bluetooth SIG has made one fundamental change. It is phasing out the Bluetooth Smart and Bluetooth Smart Ready logos and word marks and has reverted to using the Bluetooth logo and word mark. The logo uses a new blue color.
The Bluetooth SIG identifies a number of markets for low energy technology, particularly in the smart home, health, sport and fitness sectors.Cited advantages include:
- Low power requirements, operating for “months or years” on a button cell.
- Small size and low cost.
- Compatibility with a large installed base of mobile phones, tablets and computers.
The Above mentioned is a Brief about Bluetooth Low Energy. Watch this space for Latest Trend and Updates in the Tech World.