My BLE Adventures
On my continuing quest to learn "The IoT", I've explored a long list of sensors, displays, microcontrollers, LEDs and some forms of wireless communication. Recently I've taken more of an interest in Bluetooth Low Energy because of its wide adoption in consumer devices and integrated support in some MCUs. This blog post documents some of the trivia/tricks I've learned along the way. The word 'Adventures' is really a euphemism; the BLE specification is completely documented, yet each companies' software (and API) implementation is unique, full of missing features, incompatibilities and outright bugs. It's been a somewhat frustrating journey to arrive where I have and hopefully this blog post will help you avoid some of the sticking points and dead ends I've hit along the way. Red text indicates a feature limitation, bug or other issue you'll probably find important. First, some terminology: BLE vs. Classic BT The Bluetooth wireless sta