Bluetooth SIG adopts low energy specification

The enhancement of the specification is expected to open up markets for devices requiring low cost and low power wireless connectivity, including healthcare, sports and fitness, security, and home. "For example, the Continua Health Alliance has already selected Bluetooth low energy technology as a transport for the next version of its guidelines," said Michael Foley, executive director of the Bluetooth SIG (Bellevue, Washington), in a statement.

"Nokia has been committed to this ultra low power wireless technology since its Wibree technology development," said Markku Verkama, director of devices R&D at Nokia, in the same statement.

Bluetooth low energy technology supports short data packets; an 8 octet minimum up to 27 octets maximum, that are transferred at 1-Mbps. It uses the adaptive frequency hopping common to all versions of Bluetooth technology to minimize interference from other technologies in the 2.4-GHz ISM Band.

The latency is a few milliseconds and the range can exceed 100 meters. The standard calls for 24-bit cyclic redundancy checking for robustness against interference and supports AES-128 encryption to provide strong encryption and authentication of data packets.

Related links and articles:

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