Arduino Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) From Ground Up™

Discover Bluetooth low energy, a low power and low bandwidth wireless technology for small data, contrasting it with Bluetooth classic and noting versions from 4.0 to 5 and device types.

We examine the bearly BLE stack, with application, host, and controller blocks handling firmware, software, and radio functions, and explore single, two-chip, and three-chip configurations.

Explore the physical layer of the Bearly architecture, the radio hardware behind 2.4 ghz communication, frequency hopping spread spectrum, and the advertising and data channels.

Explore the link layer of Bluetooth Low Energy, focusing on advertising, scanning, and connection management, with packet structure and the interface to the physical layer via HCI.

Examine how link layer packets include a preamble, axis address, header, length, data, and a 24-bit crc, and how advertising packets relate to data packets and their access addresses.

Explore how the host controller interface (HCI) links the host and controller to exchange commands, events, and data through physical transport and the logical packet formats.

Explore the l2cap layer in the Bearly ble stack as a protocol multiplexing layer handling attributes and the security manager protocol, including segmentation and reassembly.

Discover how Bluetooth Low Energy 5 boosts speed, range, and advertising capacity eight times with 2M and coded PHYs plus secondary advertising channels, and understand the power tradeoffs.

Learn the generic access profile gap and how devices interact via roles, advertisements, and connection establishment. Differentiate broadcast, observer, peripheral, and central roles, including advertising packets and two-way data transfer.

Explore BLE advertising states, data limits, and the optional second request/response, and understand how advertising interval, channels, and central/peripheral roles affect power and timing.

Compare passive versus active scanning for Bluetooth advertising, and review advertisement events—connectable and scannable in directed or undirected forms—and how scan requests retrieve scan response data.

Explore how advertising interval controls advertisement packet frequency and battery life, from 20 milliseconds to 10.24 seconds, and learn scanning parameters including scan type, scan window, and scan interval.

Compare broadcasting and connection in Arduino BLE: broadcast data is unacknowledged, while a connection enables reliable two-way data exchange via connection events with adaptive frequency hopping.

Explore Bluetooth low energy modes and procedures, including broadcast, discoverable and non connectable, plus bondable and non bondable. Understand how peripheral and central roles affect discoverability, connectability, and bonding.

Explore how the attribute protocol defines a client-server data exchange in BLE, exposing attributes with handles, 16-bit or 128-bit UUIDs, and values and permissions.

Analyze the parts of a Bluetooth attribute, including the value, handle, and permissions, and understand how 512-byte value limit, 16-bit handle, and permissions govern read, write, notify, and indicate operations.

Explore the GATT hierarchy from server to services (primary and secondary), characteristics, and descriptors, and learn how handles, UUIDs, properties, and permissions enable data exchange.

Explore the Gap service, a mandatory GATT service implemented on all devices, and learn about the device name and appearance characteristics.

Create a BLE service using the Adreno Bearly library, initialize the device, assign and advertise a battery service, and expose device name and local name for central devices to discover.

Create a battery level characteristic in the battery service with read and notify properties, set an initial value of 76, and attach it to the service for central device access.

Create a custom service and a custom characteristic using 128-bit UUIDs, and compare with standard services like battery service; see how the central device reads and notifies the custom data.

Create a ble peripheral with services and characteristics, including health service (bpm and weight) and weather service (temperature and humidity), configure custom uid, enable read and notify, and advertise.

Learn how to send real-time button state from a BLE peripheral to a central device by reading a push button on pin four and writing to the button characteristic.

Develop bidirectional BLE communication with a chat service on a microcontroller: implement transmit and receive characteristics, read button state from a mobile app, and control an LCD.

Transmit analog sensor values over BLE by reading an analog pin and updating the BLE characteristic when the value changes. Test with a jumper from 3.3V to ground.

Learn how to implement event handlers and callback functions in Arduino BLE. Set up connections, disconnections, and characteristic writes to trigger background actions and control peripherals.

Explore Bluetooth Low Energy security concepts, including authentication, authorization, integrity, confidentiality, and privacy; learn pairing, bonding, and encryption, and threats like passive eavesdropping, identity tracking, and man-in-the-middle attacks.

Close the course with closing remarks that express gratitude and invite questions or suggestions. Reach out via message or the questions area to share feedback.