FEATUREDApplication Development & Modernization
PETER WELCHER | Solutions Architect
Why IOT? First, it is an expanding area of networking with increasing use cases. Secondly, it is impacting current organizations, especially healthcare and retail, but touching anything where new forms of sensors may provide valuable security or cost-saving benefits, or enable new capabilities (better inventory, better products, etc.).
This blog is a follow-up to my IOT blog series that covers one of the protocols that might be used for some IOT use cases in a bit more detail: BTLE.
See the Links section for links to my prior blogs on IOT.
This is a summary heavily based on the links listed below, intended as a quick tech brief for the reader. For deeper technical details, follow the links below.
The acronym stands for Bluetooth Low Energy, but it can also be abbreviated as BLE. It is a multi-vendor standard.
What is BLE?
- BLE is personal area network technology separate from Bluetooth. It is not Bluetooth compatible but can co-exist with it. It uses the same 2.4 GHz radio frequencies, but with a simpler modulation scheme.
- The goal of BLE is to lower power consumption and costs while providing a similar coverage range.
- Most PC and phone operating systems support BLE natively. They can support both BLE and Bluetooth at the same time.
- BLE can operate as a mesh of devices.
- BLE supports beacons for proximity detection.
For more information and specific details, see the Bluetooth link below.
Why BLE?
The objective of BLE is to enable applications requiring lower power (months or years), small size, and low cost, while retaining compatibility with the installed base of computers, phones, etc.
BLE Profiles
Bluetooth defines profiles for how a device should work for a specific application. There are several for BLE:
- Mesh profiles: BLE to BLE device “mesh”.
- Health care profiles: blood pressure, health thermometer, glucose, and continuous glucose monitor profiles.
- Sports and fitness profiles: body composition service, Cycling speed and cadence profile, etc.
- Internet connectivity profile.
- Generic sensor profiles.
- And more!
BLE/BTLE Use Cases
One big use case is tracking assets. BLE tracks location more accurately than Wi-Fi.
Another is location-based marketing which tracks shoppers, providing location-based information.
The third is sensor, environmental, and occupancy monitoring. There are BLE standards for health measurements, also sport/fitness. For example, in healthcare, track wheelchairs, high value assets, and monitor environmentals (e.g. vaccine storage or refrigerators), all at low cost.
A fourth use case is low-cost IOT, leveraging Cisco AP support for BLE.
A Little More Detail
Cisco Spaces uses BLE to track BLE-enabled assets, interact with environmental monitoring sensors, and perform tag management.
From the pure Wi-Fi perspective, BLE devices look like wireless interference sources to Cisco Clean Air. Clean Air can track up to 250 BLE beacons and 1000 devices (on the Cisco AP’s that support it).
Links to Prior IOT Blogs
Links
Conclusion
BLE is another item in the IOT toolkit, arguably more focused on indoor building controls, device tracking and sensor monitoring.
As such, it may be more adjacent to traditional networking staff skillsets, especially Wi-Fi, than other IOT technologies.
