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BLE Connectivity Architecture: The Ultimate Guide

BLE Connectivity Architecture: The Ultimate Guide

Introduction Building your first connected product is no easy task. There are many wireless networking protocols, each with its benefits and tradeoffs. However, if you're interested in widespread support, including iOS or Android devices in your network, the Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) protocol is the way to go. This Ultimate Guide to BLE Connectivity Architecture is primarily designed for engineers. Still, project managers and…
Engineer learning about automated testing in office

The 4 Key Benefits of Automated Testing

In many ways, I’m your stereotypical software engineer. I don’t do small talk, but I can talk for days about my work and side projects. I’m easily irked by inefficiencies -- if it can be done more efficiently, why not do it that way? I also…
Punch Through Office where engineers use rx and delegate programming on iOS

Using Rx vs Delegates with CoreBluetooth

Reactive (or “Rx”) style programming is quickly becoming a popular design pattern in mobile development. What is it, and how does it compare to the tried-and-true delegation pattern? Should you be using Rx on your next mobile project? Follow…
Ultimate Guide to Apple's Core Bluetooth library

The Ultimate Guide to Apple’s Core Bluetooth

This article assumes you know the very basics of Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) and iOS programming (including the delegation pattern for asynchronous calls common to many iOS native APIs), and is meant as a comprehensive guide to the ins and outs of…
BLE Firmware Engineering office

Creating a BLE Peripheral with BlueZ

While I’m fairly well-versed in working with BLE on an embedded device, I have so far had little experience with using BLE at a higher level. To help remedy this, I underwent the task of creating a BLE peripheral running a GATT server on a…
Computer coding with Android and Bluetooth symbol - Android BLE tips

4 Tips to Make Android BLE Actually Work

Android development is hard, and it's no thanks to its relatively fragmented ecosystem and having a million OEM’s out there. Throw BLE—which is extremely hardware and Bluetooth spec. dependent!—into the mix and the platform's behavior becomes…
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Maximizing BLE Throughput on iOS and Android

Still confused about how fast you can really send data over Bluetooth Low Energy? It's not just you. A google search will turn up many incomplete answers. Each OS and device has it’s own restrictions, such as connection interval and number of…
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WTF is an iBeacon

At this year’s WWDC, Apple quietly announced one of their upcoming products for iOS 7, the iBeacon. Even if you’ve been following WWDC and the iOS 7 announcements, you might not have heard of the iBeacon. And even if you’ve heard the name,…
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How GAP and GATT Work

Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) is a protocol developed by Bluetooth SIG that builds on the lessons learned from building lots of Bluetooth Classic devices. Compared to Bluetooth Classic, BLE consumes less power, requires less time and effort to…
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Testing Bluetooth Low Energy Devices

Bluetooth Low Energy is a new Bluetooth standard that is exciting for a couple reasons- it enables very low power battery applications, and it further opens the smartphone accessory market. LightBlue allows you to test and simulate Bluetooth Low…