Wireless Connectivity for Low Power, Short-range IoT Applications

The Bluetooth wireless personal area networking protocol has been around for almost 25 years. Its initial use case was intended to replace cables for cell phones and PC accessories. Since its introduction in the 1990s, Bluetooth specifications have been updated many times over with additional capabilities such as faster connection and discovery, and faster data transfer rates.

As an alternative to the Bluetooth standard protocol, Bluetooth Low Energy (Bluetooth LE), A.K.A Bluetooth Smart, is ideal for low power applications running on battery. Compared to Classic Bluetooth, Bluetooth LE is intended to provide considerably reduced power consumption and cost while maintaining a similar communication range. These efficiencies are making Bluetooth LE a popular wireless connectivity technology used by OEMs for developing IoT applications, especially in the wearables segment. Bluetooth LE-enabled devices also work with any smartphone or tablet, which can store and send data over local area networks from smartwatches, fitness trackers, and augmented reality (AR) glasses in real time.

The newly introduced Lantronix xPico^® 250 embedded wireless gateway provides Bluetooth and Bluetooth LE in addition to enterprise Wi-Fi and Ethernet connectivity options. Using a built-in network communications engine and flexible systems integration modes, this versatile industrial-grade combo module allows OEMs to get to market faster with their IoT solutions by completely offloading IoT communications from their embedded microcontrollers.

Click the button to find out how this embedded Ethernet, Wi-Fi, and Bluetooth module can be used to create a gateway that aggregates multiple Bluetooth LE heart rate monitors for publishing or displaying real-time data via the Internet.

Application Note 

Get the Code on Github

Watch the xPico 250 Video