Intro to Bluetooth Low Energy: The easiest way to learn BLE

Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) is an exciting new technology that was introduced in 2010. It targets applications in the Internet of Things (IoT) space. With the recent release of Bluetooth 5 in late 2016 and Bluetooth mesh in mid-2017 (which builds on top of BLE), Bluetooth is now more capable than ever of becoming the standard wireless protocol used in many IoT applications including: smart homes, smart cities, medical devices, wearables, and sensor connectivity.

Learning a new technology is always challenging and usually comes with a learning curve. Some technologies are easier to learn than others. Unfortunately, Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) can be one of those hard ones. The lack of good resources including blogs, tutorials, and up-to-date books that help a beginner to learn BLE, makes the task even more difficult.

That is, in fact, the primary goal of this book: to provide you with a complete understanding of the basics and core concepts of BLE that you can learn in a single weekend.

Here's a tiny list of the benefits this book will help you achieve:

• Understand what Bluetooth Low Energy is and how it compares to Bluetooth Classic.
• Become better informed about the use cases where BLE makes the most sense.
• Learn all about Bluetooth 5 and the new features it brought us.
• Understand how two BLE devices discover and connect with each other.
• Understand how BLE devices exchange and transfer data between each other.
• Fully grasp concepts such as Peripherals, Centrals, Advertising, Connections, GATT, GAP, and many others.
• Learn about the newly released Bluetooth mesh standard.

What readers are saying

€œI bought your BLE book and I love it. I am an iOS developer and your material helped me understand some of the finer points of BLE€

-Alex Carrizo, Senior iOS Developer, iOS SME at Mobile Apps Company

Topics include:

• The basics of Bluetooth Low Energy & Bluetooth 5.0.
• The difference between BLE and Bluetooth Classic (the one used for streaming audio and connecting headsets).
• The benefits and limitations of using BLE and which use cases make the most sense for BLE.
• The difference between a BLE Central and a BLE Peripheral.
• All about GATT (Generic Attribute Profile) and GAP (Generic Access Profile).
• How Bluetooth 5 achieves double the speed, four times the range, and eight times the advertising capacity.- How BLE devices advertise and discover each other.
• How two BLE devices connect to each other.
• How BLE devices exchange and transfer data between each other.
• Profiles, Services, and Characteristics.
• How secure BLE is, and how BLE devices secure the communication channel between them.
• The different connection and advertising parameters and what each of them means.
• An introduction to Bluetooth mesh.

About the Author

Mohammad Afaneh has been an embedded engineer for over 10 years. Since 2014, he has focused solely on learning and developing Bluetooth Low Energy applications. He even spent days and weeks reading through the 2,800+ page Bluetooth specification document looking for answers to questions he couldn€t find answers to in other books and resources. He shares everything he knows about development for BLE technology at his website www.novelbits.io, and via training classes around the world.