1. Internet of Things
with
Bluetooth Low Energy & iBeacons
MDS, 2014
Vivek Jain & Jigish Chawda

2. Bluetooth Low Energy
Bluetooth LE / BLE / Bluetooth Smart

3. Low cost wireless
personal area network for
‘Things’

4. 2.5 Billion
Bluetooth LE Chipsets to Ship in 2014
Source ABI Research

5. Low Energy?

6. History
• Research started by Nokia in 2001
• Released as Wibree in October 2006
• Integrated with Core Specification of Bluetooth 4.0
in early 2010
• iPhone 4S first to implement 4.0 specification in
October 2011
• All modern phones come with Bluetooth 4.0

7. Applications

8. Terminology
ServerClient
Has DataWants Data
PeripheralCentral

9. Terminology (contd.)
• Service
• Description of a set of data
• Example: Heart Rate Service
Peripheral
Service
CharacteristicCharacteristic
Characteristic
Service
CharacteristicCharacteristic
• Characteristic
• Actual reading or measurement
• Heart rate or sensor location
• Standard profiles available
(not mandatory)

10. Locating Peripherals
Client
(Phone)
Scanning
Peripheral
Ad Ad Ad Ad
Advertising
Interval

11. Advertising Packet Contents
• Name
• Tx Power
• Received Signal Strength Indicator (RSSI)
• Service UUID
• 16-bit from Bluetooth SIG
• Self assigned 128-bit
• Service Data?
• Example: Room Temperature
Max: 31 bytes

12. Support
• iOS 5 onwards
• iPhone 4S onwards
• iOS 6+ devices can function
as peripheral
• Android 4.3 onwards
• Nexus 4 onwards
• peripheral support coming
with Android L
iOS Android

13. Demo - RFduino

14. iBeacon

15. Works where GPS fails

16. Bluetooth LE device
advertising presence
That’s It!!
It’s just a trademark by Apple, Inc!

17. iBeacon Advertisement
Packet
Proximity UUID: Organization level identifier
31 bytes
iBeacon Prefix
(9 bytes)
Proximity UUID
(16 bytes)
Major ID
(2 bytes)
Minor ID
(2 bytes)
TX Power
(2 bytes)Major ID: Store level identifier?
Minor ID: Department level identifier?

18. iBeacon Functions
• Region Monitoring
• Ranging

19. Region Monitoring
• Track entry/exit of the iBeacon
‘region’
• Works even when phone is
locked
• Notifies app to take action
• Example: Notification at
specific location/entrance

20. Ranging
• For regular updates
• App needs to be active
• Returns array of ‘all’
beacons in range
Immediate
< 1m
Near
~ 1-10m
Far
> 10 m
• Proximity in 3 rough
categories
• Examples:
• Indoor navigation
• Relevant content based on
exhibits nearby

21. Support
• iOS 7 onwards
• iPhone/iPad can function as iBeacon
• Android support through 3rd party libraries
(RadiusNetworks, Estimote etc.)

22. Demo - iBeacon

23. BLE Vs NFC
Batteries last up to 2 years No batteries required
Coverage radius varies according
to signal strength (measured in
feet/meters)
Coverage radius is very small
(measured in centimeters)
One to Many One to One

24. Thank You!
vivek.jain@thoughtworks.com
jigish.chawda@thoughtworks.com