BLUETOOTH (BLE) YET TO EXPLORE POTENTIAL FROM THE PAST

Before diving into the topic, here’s the disclaimer.. It isn’t an academic paper and nor am a researcher(at least by the writing of this article), So I don’t make ideas complex, and everything was explained in layman’s terms. So relax and enjoy reading.

There would be literally no one on this planet who doesn’t know about Bluetooth, especially for 90’s kids it would be a nostalgic memory seeing the bluetooth logo every time. Because it’s the first ever wireless transfer protocol used since good old Nokia days. I still remember the days my dad and relatives were sharing a low quality mp3 file (around 1-2Mb) and feeling victorious like launching a rocket. It’s called the classic Bluetooth, which marks the start of the bluetooth era.

Grab your seats, here comes a bit of the history part..

Our hero of the topic,Bluetooth LE came into existence around 2006 (integrated into BL 4.0) by the same old day innovator Nokia.. The difference here is, it has all the good stuff of classic Bluetooth but with less power consumption. Even it operates on the same 2.4Ghz spectrum (you guessed it right..It’s the same used by current WIFI).

(Fun fact:Though Nokia developed it, iPhone 4s was the first device to come with BLE)

In addition to it’s major advantage of low energy (which makes it operable for months even with a button cell), it’s integration into all the OS had set it’s bar.

Getting back to the present day, Bluetooth LE is everywhere..Not only phones but everything that’s wireless from smart health devices like BP monitor, Weight scales to fitness bands..Even the pacemaker for heart, which regulates heart beat.. (That’s a topic of talk for another day..so don’t forget to bookmark the site).

It’s no doubt it plays a major role in today’s IOT explosion. Now you may think that the topic was “it was underused”..But I was saying something contrast. Don’t worry, you read the topic right.

Inspite of it’s huge applications, it wasn’t utilised to it’s full. 

Let’s start with the project idea which got me into this, “Bluetooth based attendance system”.. 

If it sounds interesting to you..”Thank you”, if not..you aren’t alone..

Actually bluetooth based indoor navigation was a continuous topic of research, because of it’s low energy requirements and of course it was found in all smartphones.

If you are wondering about the term, “Indoor navigation”, Let me give you a basic idea.. 

For usual road-way navigation, we use GPS (which is satellite based) and with accuracy of 5-10 meters(best cases) it’s sufficient and reliable.

But take that you are in a big shopping mall and you need to navigate within the mall..If you are new to that mall it would be difficult and GPS can’t help you in that circumstances..

That’s where the idea of Indoor navigation kicks in..

Indoor navigation using BLE was around for decades and now WIFI was also incorporated into it. But still we are in a constant search for improving.

Giving you a glimpse of how BLE for indoor navigation works..It’s mostly about distance estimation with signal strength received.

Confusing..?

of course..It involves a lot of wave theory to explain that, but in laymen terms..lower the signal strength

greater the distance is from the source.

In practical example, take that your friend (source) is shouting something to you (receiver)..If you are near to him, you can clearly hear him, but when distance increases between you two..you can’t hear him right? It’s the same case.

Though it may sound easy, what if there are various other persons shouting in between you two?

It becomes complex, right? This interference is called noise and also there are serval other environmental factors that influences signal strength.

More than these, the real challenge that I and most face in this estimation is, improper

or non-uniform implementation of bluetooth by various manufacturers. Some smartphones have powerful reception antennas (like LG,Asus…) while others may have high transmission powers (like Samsung), which gets us into calibration issues.

Implementation in COVID tracing: Many may know that Google and Apple joined together (rare phenomenon) to develop a contact tracing methodology using BLE.

But what’s the end result? Though the efforts were excellent and it was pushed to all android and IOS devices through their services. And majority governments made use of it.

But It ended up with considerable false positives and negatives.

What’s the problem? Of course the wrong distance estimation (which is crucial in this application) mainly due to unreliable BLE implementation across manufacturers.

If you started thinking that BLE failed in that. It’s not really the case. 

Let’s discuss about how we can overcome these in the next article along with also some more interesting topics like “Can bluetooth can be hacked?”, “Is UWB going to replace Bluetooth?”
To know more, stay around..

Peace..