Performance Analysis and Comparison of Bluetooth Low Energy with IEEE 802.15.4 and SimpliciTI

Abstract

Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) is a recently developed energy-efficient short-range wireless communication protocol. In this paper, we discuss and compare the maximum peer-to-peer throughput, the minimum frame turnaround time, and the energy consumption for three protocols, namely BLE, IEEE 802.15.4 and SimpliciTI. The specifics and the main contributions are the results both of the theoretical analysis and of the empirical measurements, which were executed using the commercially available hardware transceivers and software stacks. The presented results reveal the protocols’ capabilities and enable one to estimate the feasibility of using these technologies for particular applications. Based on the presented results, we draw conclusions regarding the feasibility and the most suitable application scenarios of the BLE technology.

Keywords

• Bluetooth Low Energy
• BLE
• 802.15.4, SimpliciTI, performance
• throughput
• latency
• efficiency
• measurements
• energy