BLE is an abbreviation for Bluetooth Low Energy, which is a wireless private area network technology marketed and designed by Bluetooth specialists. They aim to create novel apps in home entertainment, healthcare, security, and fitness and beacons industries. In comparison with Classic Bluetooth, Bluetooth Smart Bluetooth Smart is envisioned to deliver significantly less power ingesting and cost although upholding a parallel message range.
However, in order to learn any new technology, you must know about the suitable tools. This is one of the biggest challenges. It does not matter if you are a firmware or a mobile developer, working on a BLE app requires a set of tools that must be utilized to create your app in the most effective manner.
Here is the list of three crucial tools every Bluetooth Low Energy App developer needs to use.
1. Client Emulator App
This can be a desktop or mobile app connected through an internal BLE chip or BLE dongle. This is a very useful tool in the situation where you do not have a confidante mobile app prepared. It is extremely helpful for testing latest changes during the development phase. These applications permit you to shot for neighbor advertising BLE devices. This empowers you to connect to one of these devices and discern their characteristics and services.
The finest two samples are:
- Nordic nRF Connect app (Desktop, iOS, Android,).
- LightBlue app (macOS,iOS).
2. Bluetooth Specification Document
Even though this is not considered a tool per se, it is still the foremost orientation manuscript for each Bluetooth developer – embedded or mobile. When you have questions about specific technical features of Bluetooth low energy, the requirement paper is the best deed to refer to. You can access freely to the released Bluetooth plan docs.
In order to get a good beginning on cutting-edge approved specs, you can also access pre-released forms of a spec. At that time, you can reach them after signing up to the participant at the adapter level.
3. Bluetooth Sniffer
The significance of Bluetooth Sniffer cannot be sidelined because the Bluetooth developer cannot do anything without it. Sniffers have the feature of spying on the communication between your peripheral and central devices. It acts as a background required for altering any of your system’s behavior.
There are two main forms of Bluetooth Sniffers:
- Guileless and economical sniffers (come in the bracket of $50-$100) that are typically constructed on development gears.
- Extra innovative, expensive sniffers (come in the bracket of $4,000-$30,000).
There are some drawbacks of low-cost sniffers. It includes the absence of advanced features on desktop and ability to test three advertising channels at the same time.
Incorporating a Bluetooth low energy sniffer can assist greatly in mending ambiguities with data transfer and connection amongst the central and the peripheral device.
There are two examples of Bluetooth sniffers:
- Commercial/High end: Teledyne LeCroy sniffers (previously Forefront), Ellisys sniffers.
- Cheap/Economical: Nordic nRF51 sniffer, Ubertooth One, TI CC2540 USB dongle sniffer.
Conclusion
After reviewing the discussion above, one thing is very clear that Bluetooth Low Energy App development cannot be ignored. They are required by almost all the companies to make data transfer simpler and easy. The three tools (i.e. client emulator app, specification document and sniffer) mentioned above, play a key role in helping the developers to create best BLE app. Developers must incorporate these tools to develop the outstanding quality BLE apps.