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The Applications and Industries Being Powered by Bluetooth

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BLE is a low power wireless technology for Personal Area Networks:

Operates in 2.4 GHz with over-the-air throughput of up to 300 kbps (PHY Rate: 1 Mbps)

Optimized for low-power/coin-cell battery operation

Designed for Point-to-Point or STAR topologies

BLE devices are typically limited to a range of a 10’s of meters

Smartphones are used for local control and as a Gateway to the Internet

Profiles target wearables, health & fitness, phone accessories, and medical

No home automation or lighting profiles exist today for BLE

: Overview

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Emergence of the Internet of Things (IoT)

Size, power and resource

constrained things…

…connected to

the Internet

DESKTOP

COMPUTERS

HANDSETS | LAPTOPS | TABLETS

INTERNET OF THINGS | WEARABLES

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APPS | CONNECTIVITY

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Fitness | Health | Fashion

Diving into the Wearables Market

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$8B2013*

$20B2017*

*Futuresource Consulting

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Companies competing for the same “real estate”

Solution must stand-out to succeed

Product differentiation

Industrial design

Functionality

Ease of use (user interface, user experience, battery life)

User Experience Drives Winning Designs

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Data collection

Type of information and frequency

User interaction

Touch display, buttons, mobile app, gestures

Connectivity

Communication and personalization

Importance of Use Cases

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Design Trade-Offs for Wearables

Activity Tracker Fitness Band / Super Watch Smart Watch

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Features Activity Tracker Fitness Band Super Watch Smart Watch

Processing

Needs

Low Medium High

MCU class Cortex-M0+ Cortex-M3 Cortex-M4 Cortex-M7 ++

DMIPS / MHz 0.94 1.25 1.25 2.14

FPU No No Yes Yes

Display None / LED Small LCD Medium LCD Color LCD

Sensors Limited Moderate Many

Wireless Bluetooth Bluetooth, GPS (optional) Bluetooth, GPS

Selecting the Right Core for the Application

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Selecting the Right Battery Technology

CR2032 Li-ion polymer

Type Disposable Rechargeable

Voltage (nom) 3.0 V 3.7 V

Capacity (typ) 240 mAh 55 – 150 mAh

Energy density (mWh/cc) 653 252

Weight 3.0 g 1.4 – 4.0 g

Recharging Circuitry No Yes

System Cost Lowest Highest

Must Balance Battery Selection versus Ease of Use, Size, and Cost

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Sensors Provide Foundation for Rich User Experience

Lower Power

Higher Power

Need to gate power or limit use of certain sensors for battery life

ENVIRONMENT

Ambient Light

Temp and RH Sensor

Barometer

BIOMETRICS

Heart Rate

Pulse Oximetry

MOTION

Accelerometer

Magnetometer

Gyroscope

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Connectivity

BLE is the dominant wireless solution for wearables

Low-power operation with seamless pairing with smartphones

Ideal for low data rate and bursty transactions — sensor data, over-the-air updates

Personalization

Simplified entry of user information via app — weight and height

Customization of look and feel — changing watch face

Need to balance benefits and use of wireless versus battery life

Typical transmit and receive currents ~6 to 9 mA

Wireless Offers Connectivity and Personalization

Hours to DaysHigh Data Use

Weeks to MonthsLimited Data Use

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Power

Time

SleepSignal

Processing

Energy

=

Power × Time

System Power Considerations

Wireless

Transaction

Data

Capture

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Spend as much time as possible in deep sleep

Specify wake-up sources, use low-power timer for timekeeping

Use MCUs with fast wake-up times to avoid wasted energy

Limit RF transactions and go back to sleep quickly

Do as much work as possible in lowest power states

Select MCUs with autonomous peripherals

Monitor energy use during debug using energy profiling tools

Optimizing for Low-Power Operation

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Bringing it All Together

Use casesSoftware

AlgorithmsHardware

RequirementsUser

Interaction

Track step count, heart rate and calories burned. Sync with mobile app.

Optimize for Low Power

Use Kalman filtering to extract step count from accelerometer and

additional signal processing to calculate heart-rate.

ARM Cortex-M4 MCU with FPU and fast-wake-up, accelerometer, light sensor,

LEDs, touch display and Bluetooth Smart RF.

Enter weight in app to estimate calories burned.

Publish information on touch display. Swipe to page.

Wake-up from accelerometer, collect data using autonomous peripherals

and limit auto wireless sync to once a day.

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Industrial Electronics | Lighting | Retail

A brief look at the Industrial Sector

16B2013*

24B2018*

*IHS Technology

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Bluetooth beacons are taking off

Enable “proximity-aware applications”

End Customers benefit through

Instant coupons and tailored offerings

Businesses benefit through

Improved visibility to buying habits

Increased loyalty

Retail Beacons

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Bluetooth Beaconing Overview

Uses Standard BLE advertisement

Define the advertisement payload and format

iBeacon

Apple’s proprietary beacon format

Functionality integrated into iOS

EddyStone

Open standard promoted by Google

Integrated into Android and Chrome web browser

Several Emerging Standards like AltBeacon

Develop beacons with Bluetooth low energy technology

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Evolving use-case & features of Bluetooth Low Energy

Point-to-Point

Smartphone, cloud &

connectivity (4.X)

Indoor Positioning

Beaconing (4.X)

Precise Location (Future)

Smart Mesh

Flooding (Phase 1)

Routing (Phase 2)

Higher Data Rate

Extended Packets (4.2)

2 Mbps PHY (BT 5.0)

Longer Range

Higher TX Power (4.X)

Long Range PHY (5.0)

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Bluetooth SoC Tools, Modules, SDK, & Ref Designs

Introducing the Blue Gecko

ARM Cortex-M4, 40 MHz

HW Crypto Accelerator (AES, ECC, SHA)

RTC, Timers, Oscillators

Integrated DC/DC

Low active/sleep currents

1.85-3.8 V

Multi-protocol radio

2.4 GHz +19.5 dBm PA

Sub-GHz +20 dBm PA

32-256 kB Flash

16-32 kB RAM

QFN, CSP options

ADC, USARTS, I2C

Timers/PWM/Comparator

Pulse counter

Software Stacks

• Bluetooth Smart

• Proprietary RAIL, Connect, SIGFOX

Modules

• BLE

• Mesh

Reference Designs

• Home Automation

• Lighting

Simplicity Studio

• Application Notes

• Data sheets

• Reference Manuals

• Driver Libraries

• Application Builder

• Network Analyzer

• Advanced Energy Monitor

• Part configuration

• Modem calculator

• Packet configurator

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