iBeacon, Eddystone, Bluetooth, IoT sensor beacons, apps, platforms
When testing beacons and Bluetooth LE, nRF Connect is usually sufficient. However, if you need deeper analysis of Bluetooth you need to use a packet sniffer.
NCC Group has a new open source sniffer for Bluetooth 5 that also works with Bluetooth 4.x. You need to run the software on a Texas Instruments (TI) CC26x2 board.
The source code and instructions are available on GitHub.
A new direction finding feature has been released for Bluetooth 5.1 (pdf). Using more than one antenna, as used by Quuppa, allows for direction finding.
The paper on Enhancing Bluetooth Location Services with Direction Finding explains how location services currently use RSSI to estimate the distance. Direction finding introduces more advanced Angle of arrival (AoA) and angle of departure (AoD) techniques into Bluetooth 5.
“Should smartphone vendors choose to include Bluetooth direction finding with AoA support in their products, item finding solutions could be enhanced to provide directional information.”
As with the move from Bluetooth 4 to Bluetooth 5 it’s going to be while before we see (non Quuppa) products with direction finding. This feature requires specific hardware and software. Before that, it needs SDKs from the SoC vendors. Existing smartphones, beacons and gateways won’t be able to be upgraded.
Read about Using Beacons, iBeacons for Real-time Locating Systems (RTLS)
Last February we wrote about the progress of Bluetooth 5 in recent smartphones. A few months on and Nordic Semiconductor, the company that produces the System on a Chip (SoC) used in most beacons, has a new blog post on Bluetooth 5 in Smartphones and how we are about to experience a tipping point in support for Bluetooth 5.
The final observation from the article is:
Even if sticking to previous incarnations of Bluetooth may look like the right choice, the marketing power of Bluetooth 5, regardless of whether it’s needed or not, is likely to help companies differentiate products and increase sales.
This is true. Some companies currently claiming Bluetooth 5 support in products don’t actually use Bluetooth 5 yet but instead offer an upgrade path to Bluetooth 5.
If you have been following our posts on Bluetooth 5, you might be wondering how one Bluetooth device can communicate to many devices, some of which might be legancy Bluetooth 4.
There’s a new video from Nordic Semiconductor (who produce the System on a Chip – SoC – inside most beacons) where the new long range mode is used while connecting to up to 20 devices. These can be different PHYs meaning that different capabilities, for example high speed vs long range vs legacy) can be connected at the same time.
It’s nearly a year since we wrote about Bluetooth 5 Beacon Implementation Tradeoffs.
Since then, the Samsung S8, iPhone 8/X, and Google Pixel 2 have been released that support Bluetooth 5. However, while these support the LE 2M high speed PHY they don’t support the longer range PHYs. There are currently no smartphones that can take advantage of Bluetooth 5’s longer range.
There are few true Bluetooth 5 beacons. Most that say they are Bluetooth 5 ‘ready’ or ‘compatible’ are only compatible to the extent that their firmware can be upgraded in the future.
An exception is SNCF, the French train company, who are manufacturing their own beacons in order to start experimenting with Bluetooth 5. As mentioned in the Mr Beacon video, SNCF are looking to Bluetooth 5 to provide for (up to x4) better beacon battery life. How is this possible, especially as the SoC chips themselves (usually nRF52 or TI CC2640) are the same whether they run Bluetooth 4 or 5? The battery current is actually the same. Bluetooth LE devices consume most power when actually transmitting and negligible power inbetween transmissions. The faster data rate allows the Bluetooth device to transmit the same data over less time thus using less battery power.
There’s an interesting new article on the Nordic Blogs on Bluetooth 5 Advertising Extensions . It explains how the number of channels is increasing, from 3 in Bluetooth 4.0, allowing larger advertising payloads in one of the 37 other data channels. A single advertising packet can hold up to 255 bytes of data, up from 37 in Bluetooth 4.0. The chaining of packets allows for larger payloads up to 1650 bytes.
As the article mentions, we have to wait until tablets and smartphones support Bluetooth 5. Also, we have to wait for new Beacons with Bluetooth 5.
Mouser has a free ezine called ‘Methods’ (pdf) that has in-depth articles on the latest advances in Bluetooth.
Steven Hegenderfer, Director of Developer Programs at Bluetooth SIG explains how Bluetooth 5 will enable design engineers to pioneer innovative solutions. Steven Keeping shows how Bluetooth has evolved and Barry Manz explains Bluetooth Mesh Networking and beacons.
Read more about Bluetooth mesh on our web site.
Beacons are small computers with a complete System on a Chip (SoC). There are four main companies that manufacturer SoCs: TI, Dialog, NXP and Nordic. Nordic is the most popular SoC for use in beacons, mainly because of the lower (tool) license cost and ease for beacon manufacturers developing the software (actually called firmware) that runs in the beacons.
Nordic has a new free Wireless Quarter Magazine that showcases uses of Nordic SoCs in many types of device, not just beacons.
The magazine also has articles on how Nordic is the first to launch a Bluetooth mesh Software Development Kit, how Mesh strengthens Bluetooth wireless’ IoT credentials and explains Bluetooth 5’s advertising extensions. The article says of Bluetooth 5’s advertising extensions:
“Advertising extensions, periodic advertisements, and connectionless broadcast will have a major impact on beacons”
However, the article says:
“This won’t happen overnight because few current smartphones incorporate Bluetooth 5, but expect beacons to proliferate over the next several years as new smartphones are rolled out”
In most cases you can place your beacons and they ‘just work’. However, what if you suspect things aren’t working due to other devices using the same 2.4GHz radio spectrum? It’s possible to use specialist test equipment and spectrum analysers but these are very expensive.
A new, recent article by Mark Hughes describes Troubleshooting Tools for Your Next Bluetooth LE Project: Ubertooth and the Nordic nRF Sniffer.
It shows how to use inexpensive dongles on Mac, Linux, and Windows to intercept and analyse Bluetooth LE packets.
Nordic, who supply the System On a Chip (SoC) in many beacons, have recently released the nRF52810 SoC.
Nordic already offer the nRF52840 and nRF52832 but while these have been suitable for use in Bluetooth 5 beacons they are over-specified and hence too expensive for use in most beacons. The nRF52810 solves this problem by providing a reduced feature set that makes this SoC typically 25% less expensive. Nordic say:
“The nRF52810 represents the most accessible, single-chip Bluetooth 5 solution available on the market today.”
A post on the Nordic devzone explains the main differences between the nRF52810 and nRF52832. It’s mainly removal NFC and other peripherals that aren’t important for beacons.
The nRF52810 supports Bluetooth 5 high speed and advertising extensions but, interestingly, not long range. It’s expected that the removal of the redundant peripherals should also improve power and hence battery use.