Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) Articles

How GAP and GATT Work — Bluetooth Low Energy Basics

Originally Published in 2013 and Updated April 1, 2024: Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) continues to evolve, and understanding the roles of the Generic Access Profile (GAP) and the Generic Attribute Profile (GATT) is crucial in leveraging this technology effectively. This updated article provides expanded information on GAP vs GATT and additional resources to support you on your BLE development journey. Introduction Bluetooth Low Energy…

Product Dev

5 Tips for Building Embedded UI with LVGL and PlatformIO

By: Tyler Grunenwald

Creating user interfaces (UI) that are both seamless and intuitive is one of the trickiest hurdles faced when building custom-embedded solutions. It's not just about making things look good; it's about creating an experience that feels natural to…

BLE

BLE Security: Where to Begin When Creating a Connected System

By: Ryan Kornetzke

Whether it’s your run-of-the-mill email phishing attack from a Nigerian prince, or a corporate scale data breach that leaks millions of people’s identifying information, all of us can probably recall a time where we’ve been the target of a…

BLE

BLE Sniffers: Debugging and when you may need to upgrade

By: Alec Werning

What is a Bluetooth analyzer? And why you may need one. Bluetooth protocol analyzers, also known as Bluetooth sniffers, are devices that capture and inspect radio transmissions on frequencies defined by Bluetooth specifications. Bluetooth…

Hardware

Bluetooth Module vs Chip-Down: What is Best for Your Design?

By: Matt Dunham

When developing the first generation of a new product, it’s often good practice to test the market with a device that costs less to design, even if it initially costs more to build. The goal is to get the device on the market sooner. If it…

BLE

Architecting iOS and Android Apps for IoT BLE Systems

By: Gretchen Walker

When you buy a Fitbit, you’re not just paying for the wearable hardware. You’re buying a key that unlocks access to a greater integrated system. Before you can even start using the device, you must first download the app, pair it with your…

Punch Through Office where engineers use rx and delegate programming on iOS

Mobile Apps

Using Rx vs Delegates with CoreBluetooth

By: Julian Hays

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…

Mobile Apps

Unit Testing Android BLE Code with RxAndroidBle

By: Chee Yi Ong

In this post, we look at what RxAndroidBle offers as far as unit testing is concerned, and we’ll also walk through a case study of unit testing a common BLE business logic. Seasoned Android developers will no doubt have heard of RxJava—a…

BLE

Creating a BLE Peripheral with BlueZ

By: Andy Lee

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…

Punch Through team learning about 2M PHY

BLE

Bluetooth PHY – How it Works and How to Leverage it

By: Henry Anfang

Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) is a wireless communication protocol. As with other communication protocols, BLE uses a layered design, where each layer is associated with a specific aspect of the protocol. Interlayer interaction is restricted and…

Python coding language on computer screen used to test Bluetooth Low Energy peripheral

BLE

Testing Bluetooth Low Energy Peripherals using a Python Script

By: Ashish Derhgawen

When developing a Bluetooth Low Energy peripheral, it’s often useful to have an app that can connect to and test the peripheral to ensure it’s working as expected. If, however, you don’t already have a companion app for the device, you’d…

BLE

Maximizing BLE Throughput Part 3: Data Length Extension (DLE)

By: Zach Michel

Welcome back BLE enthusiasts, to the 3rd installment in Punch Through’s ‘Maximizing BLE Throughput’ blog post series. BLE 5's Data Length Extensions are one of the largest performance improvements ever made to the BLE specification. Here's…

BLE

Maximizing BLE Throughput Part 2: Use Larger ATT MTU

By: Punch Through

It's commonly accepted with BLE that as throughput goes up, so does power consumption. However, by intelligently choosing your MTU size, you can actually increase throughput while also decreasing power consumption. Update: Please check out…

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LightBlue®

Introducing Cloud Connect for LightBlue® Explorer

By: Chee Yi Ong

Punch Through Design is proud to announce Cloud Connect: an exciting new feature for LightBlue®, the leading BLE debug and development tool. Cloud Connect enables users to quickly and easily send data received from your BLE devices via…

LightBlue®

Setting up Adafruit IO with LightBlue® Cloud Connect

By: Chee Yi Ong

LightBlue has the ability to send data received from your BLE devices via indication or notification to Adafruit's IO platform. You'll be prompted to provide some information for your Adafruit IO set up from within LightBlue® when you opt to…

LightBlue®

Setting up AWS IoT with LightBlue® Cloud Connect

By: Chee Yi Ong

LightBlue® Explorer has the ability to send data received from your BLE devices via indication or notification to AWS's Internet of Things (IoT) platform.You'll be prompted to provide some information for your AWS IoT set up from within…

BLE

Attribute Caching in BLE: Advantages and Pitfalls

By: Punch Through

Every OS that supports BLE caches parts of your device's profile. It's a method to save power and time by caching values that don't change very often. But what happens when the values change? If you're not careful, you can end up rendering your…

BLE

Maximizing BLE Throughput on iOS and Android

By: Punch Through

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…

Mobile Apps

What is an iBeacon

By: Punch Through

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,…

BLE

Testing Bluetooth Low Energy Devices

By: Punch Through

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…

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