What is BLE Bluetooth Technology?

It’s been a trend for decades to talk about the Internet of Things (IoT), but this market is now very real. Over 10 billion IoT devices are currently in use around the world. Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) is one of the main technologies that is making this market grow.

This open system, which came out in 2012, lets many of the most important IoT apps join wirelessly. Because it only needs very little power to work, it can be used in many fields, including healthcare, transportation, and consumer goods.

Learn the basics of BLE Bluetooth technology in this article. Then, start your next BLE project right away and get a piece of the huge $384 billion IoT market.

How Bluetooth Came to Be?

While in the 1990s, the Bluetooth Specification was first made public. At first, the goal was to create a system that would allow devices to send data to each other over short distances without using wires. This is still the main way it is used today.

Bluetooth is a short-range wireless device that sends data and sets up personal area networks (PANs) in the unlicensed 2.4 GHz ISM band.

Cell phones, computers, headphones, and speakers are just a few of the Bluetooth gadgets that most of us have handy right now. In fact, more than 4.7 billion Bluetooth gadgets were sent around the world in 2021. There are a lot of people who use Bluetooth all over the world.

A lot of people would know what Bluetooth is. While it seems simple, the Bluetooth Special Interest Group (SIG) is in charge of this rather complicated technology standard. The Bluetooth SIG has put out different versions of the Bluetooth Specification over the years. The Bluetooth Classic and Bluetooth Low Energy modes are the most used ones in the spec.

Before 2010, the main goal was to make Bluetooth Classic better. But in 2010, Bluetooth SIG came out with v4.0. It was different from the ones that came before it because it added a new technology called Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE).

How do you use Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE)?

Even though Bluetooth Low Energy is similar to its predecessor, Bluetooth Classic, in many ways, it is seen as a separate technology that is better suited to places where ultra-low power is needed rather than high speed.

An LE radio can send and receive data in small bursts that don’t have to happen very often. For example, an LE user might turn on the radio every so often, send or receive a few bytes or kilobytes of data, and then turn it off and go back to sleep.

In Bluetooth Classic use cases, the radio is not turned off. For example, to make sure the least amount of delay when a call comes in, the link is kept open for a long time. In this case, the radio is not turned off.

High-End Bluetooth vs. Low-End Bluetooth

The Bluetooth Specification covers both the Bluetooth Classic and Bluetooth Low Energy protocols, and they both work in the 2.4 GHz ISM band, among other things. However, they are not the same and cannot be used together.

Even though Bluetooth Classic is made to handle a lot of data, it uses up power quickly. You might want to use Bluetooth headphones to send music from your phone. In the past, Bluetooth Classic was used in this way.

Bluetooth old school vs. Bluetooth low energy

On the other hand, BLE is made for uses that don’t need to handle a lot of data but do need extra long battery life. Imagine a monitor in a building that needs to keep the right temperature. You want to set it once and forget about it for months or even years. To use that kind of thing, BLE would be better.

Even though there are more technical changes between the two systems, Bluetooth Classic and Bluetooth Low Energy are basically different in how much power they use and how much data they can send and receive.

Why BLE is good?

You should now know that BLE was created for a specific market: gadgets that need to send small amounts of data and use little power. To help meet the needs of this market, Bluetooth Low Energy offers many benefits for both gadget makers and end users. Now, let’s look at some of the best things about BLE:

Low electricity use

Even when compared to other tools that use little power. BLE keeps the radio off as much as possible and sends small amounts of data at slow transfer speeds to get the best performance and use the least amount of power.

It’s cheap to start developing.

When compared to other technologies that do the same thing, BLE devices and chipsets are cheap. This is because more people are adopting it and there is more competition in the market.

Applications for BLE

The BLE standard was first released in 2010 with the main goal of supporting Internet of Things (IoT) apps that send small amounts of data at slower speeds. In the past ten years, BLE has been used in a wide range of situations, from personal electronics to industry. Here are some of the most popular uses we see today:

Home automation: Bluetooth LE helps make a lot of the home automation business possible. Smart lights, smart heaters, smart locks, and sensors that can tell when a window is open or smoke is present are all made possible by BLE technology.
A lot of us have Fitbits or smartwatches that track our steps, heart rate, and other things. These health and fitness trackers use Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) to talk to apps on our phones. BLE technology works great for these short bursts of data that happen close together.
exercise tracker with Bluetooth
Audio devices: Bluetooth headphones are well-known, but most of the time, these devices use Bluetooth Classic. LE Audio is one of the newest additions to Bluetooth Low Energy. This new standard is better than the old Bluetooth standard in a number of ways, such as supporting hearing aids, improving sound quality, and using less power.
Tracking contacts: To help stop the spread of dangerous diseases, smart tracking tools for contacts are starting to appear. Instead of sending information that can be used to find people who have been close to a sick person by hand, BLE-enabled contact tracking lets BLE “tags” or smartphones be scanned all the time to track human connections secretly.
It’s become more difficult to plan trips, so some people are putting AirTags or Tiles on their bags in case they get lost. However, these precise tracking devices with BLE can be used for more than just bags. You can put one on anything you think you might lose, like your bike keys or your car keys, and use an app on your phone to find it.
More specific ads: Imagine that you are in a clothes store and your phone sends you a push message with a coupon for that shop. Store owners and marketers can give people these kinds of personalized ads that are based on where they are. This is possible because Bluetooth 5.0 and Bluetooth Beacons’ transmission technology have made things better.
Management of inventory: Some warehouse managers are starting to use Bluetooth solutions to keep an eye on the temperature and dampness of fragile shipments, find out if fragile items have been dropped, and even figure out where the best places are to store assets in the warehouse. Artificial intelligence and Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) could be used together to make a really smart transportation chain.