Bluetooth Smart Connectivity
Bluetooth Overview
Bluetooth Smart, also known as Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE), is a wireless technology
that enables wireless personal area networks using radio waves in the 2.4 GHz band,
which allows devices to connect with each other across a short-range while using
less energy and costing less than Classic Bluetooth.
BLE is optimized for ultra-low power applications in battery-powered devices that
need wireless networking capabilities.
Features of Bluetooth Low Energy:
✓ Bluetooth Smart uses a 2.4 GHz radio band to connect to nearby devices. It
has two roles: Peripheral (Slave) and Central (Master). The Peripheral device
advertises its presence, while the Central device sends a connection request
to establish a connection.
✓ BLE uses two additional terms to describe the connecting entities:
❖ Server - the device that has information to share, that is the peripheral
❖ Client - the device that seeks information and services, that is phone.
✓ Support: Many mobile operating systems, including iOS, Android, Windows
Phone, and BlackBerry, natively support Bluetooth Smart.
✓ BLE is Power Efficient: The radio of Bluetooth LE-enabled devices only awakes
when necessary to conserve power. When a device wants to send or listen for
data, the LE radio is turned on to quickly perform the necessary tasks and then
disconnects. For example, a heart rate monitor in a fitness tracker can collect
all the heart rate data and send it to your smartphone once every hour. Or a
temperature sensor that’s triggered only to send the temperature reading if
the temperature is very high or low, consume as little power as 0.01 to 0.5
Watts making it perfect for devices with longer lifespans that only need to
share minute amounts of data at intervals.
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✓ BLE Has Shorter Connection Times: Bluetooth LE consumes less energy due to
the reduced number of RF channels available for the connection, which results
in faster connections and less time spent scanning. Bluetooth Classic has 32 RF
channels that can be used to establish a connection between devices, whereas
Bluetooth LE only has 3 RF channels - RF37, RF38, and RF39 channels known
as the primary advertising channels.
✓ BLE Radio Uses Smaller Packets: Bluetooth LE data packets are much smaller
than Bluetooth Classic data packets. Smaller packet sizes require less
computation overhead when encoding and decoding. This reduces power
consumption.
✓ Pulsed Battery Discharge: Data transmissions with BLE are done in periodic
short bursts that are followed by idle periods. During these idle periods, the
battery can recover, which helps the battery last longer.
✓ BLE Protocol is an Asymmetric Design: The BLE protocol uses an asymmetric
design to issue tasks to devices that want to connect. The central
device usually has more processing capability and battery power, like a
smartphone. On the other hand, the peripheral is usually a device with less
processing power and limited energy resources like fitness trackers, heart-rate
monitors, etc.
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Two Main Ways BLE-enabled Devices Communicate
A BLE-enabled device can communicate in one of two ways:
1. Connectionless communication: it broadcasts its data to any listening device
2. Connection-oriented communication: it forms a dedicated connection with
another device and communicates with it using the client-server mechanism
Connectionless Communication
LE devices that want to participate in connectionless communication are given two
roles defined by the GAP layer. One device has to be the broadcaster, and the other
device(s) has to be the observer(s).
The GAP role of a device controls the link layer of the device, which in turn will
control the LE radio of the device.
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• Step 1: The broadcaster device instructs its link layer to be an advertiser. A link
layer that is an advertiser controls the LE radio to move from the stand-by or
idle state to the advertising state and vice versa.
• Step 2: When the LE radio is in an advertising state, the advertiser (link layer)
can send out advertising packets on the three dedicated advertising channels,
RF37, RF38, and RF39. The advertising packets can contain data such as the
name and the address of the broadcasting device.
• Step 3: On the other hand, the observer(s) instructs its link layer to be a
scanner. A link layer that is a scanner controls the LE radio to move from a
stand-by state (idle) to the scanning state and vice versa.
• Step 4: When the LE radio is in the scanning state, the scanner tunes in and
listens for data on the primary advertising channels (RF37, RF38, and RF39).
Connection-oriented Communication:
1. Device discovery and the
2. Client-server relationship between connected devices.
Device Discovery & Connection Setup: Bluetooth LE can control and coordinate
other layers of the stack for a specific use case. In this regard, the GAP governs how
the link layer and PHY layer (LE Radio) should function for BLE devices to discover
and establish connections.
LE devices that want to participate in connection-oriented communication are given
two roles defined by the GAP layer. One device has to be central, and the other has
to be peripheral.
• Step 1: The advertiser of a peripheral directs the LE radio to broadcast
advertising packets on the advertising channels and to also listen for a
connection request packet coming from a central device.
• Step 2: When a central device wants to connect to a peripheral device, it first
uses its link layer as a scanner. The scanner will use the LE radio to listen for
the advertising packets.
• Step 3: When a central device recognizes a device to which it wishes to
connect, the link layer switches the LE radio from the advertising to the
initiating state.
• Step 4: In the initiating state, the LE radio sends a connection request packet
to the peripheral device. The connection is established if the peripheral device
accepts the connection request.
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