Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) has gained significant momentum. However, the original design of BLE focused on star topology networking, which limits network coverage range and precludes end-to-end path diversity. In contrast, other competing technologies overcome such constraints by supporting the mesh network topology. For these reasons, academia, industry, and standards development organizations have been designing solutions to enable BLE mesh networks. Nevertheless, the literature lacks a consolidated view on this emerging area. This paper comprehensively surveys state of the art BLE mesh networking. We first provide a taxonomy of BLE mesh network solutions. We then review the solutions, describing the variety of approaches that leverage existing BLE functionality to enable BLE mesh networks. We identify crucial aspects of BLE mesh network solutions and discuss their advantages and drawbacks. Finally, we highlight currently open issues.

The recent publication of the Bluetooth Mesh standard is a remarkable milestone in the evolution of Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE). As a new technology in the Internet of Things (IoT) market, it is crucial to investigate the performance of Bluetooth Mesh. However, while a fundamental feature of Bluetooth Mesh is its suitability for energy-constrained devices, this aspect has not yet been properly considered in the literature. In this paper, we model the current consumption, lifetime and energy cost per delivered bit of a battery-operated Bluetooth Mesh sensor node. The model is based on measurements performed on a real hardware platform. Evaluation results quantify the impact of crucial Bluetooth Mesh parameters. Among others, we have found that a sensor device running on a simple 235 mAh battery, and sending a data message every 10 s, can achieve a lifetime of up to 15.6 months, whereas the asymptotic lifetime is 21.4 months.

Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) mesh networking is an emerging technology domain that promises an important role in the Internet of Things. Significant market opportunities for BLE mesh networking have motivated the recent development of two different BLE mesh networking standards, Bluetooth Mesh and 6BLEMesh, produced by the Bluetooth SIG and IETF, respectively. These two standards follow different technical approaches. In this article, we present the main features of Bluetooth Mesh and 6BLEMesh, and investigate their performance characteristics and trade-offs.

Most Internet of Things (IoT) communication technologies rely on terrestrial network infrastructure. When such infrastructure is not available or does not provide sufficient coverage, satellite communication offers an alternative IoT connectivity solution. Satellite-enabled IoT devices are typically powered by a limited energy source. However, as of this writing, and to our best knowledge, the energy performance of satellite IoT technology has not been investigated. In this paper, we model and evaluate the energy performance of Iridium satellite technology for IoT devices. Our work is based on real hardware measurements. We provide average current consumption, device lifetime, and energy cost of data delivery results as a function of different parameters. Results show, among others, that an Iridium-enabled IoT device, running on a 2400 mAh battery and sending a 100-byte message every 100 min, may achieve a lifetime of 0.95 years. However, Iridium device energy performance decreases significantly with message rate.

Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) has become one of the most popular low-power wireless technologies. While BLE was originally designed for star topology networks only, recent developments have focused on enabling mesh network topology support for BLE. An emerging category of BLE mesh network initiatives is based on routing data units over BLE data channels. This letter investigates the fundamental connectivity parameters of data-channel-based BLE mesh networks, such as the probability of no isolation of a node and network K-connectivity. We provide an analytical model for both parameters which is validated by means of extensive simulations.

Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) has become a major wireless technology for the Internet of Things (IoT). Recent efforts of academia, industry and standards development organizations have focused on creating BLE mesh network solutions. 6BLEMesh is a specification being developed by the IETF that defines an IPv6-oriented approach for BLE mesh networking. In this paper, we perform an experimental evaluation of 6BLEMesh, based on a real implementation. We evaluate latency, round trip time (RTT) and energy consumption. For the latter, we model the device current consumption, we determine the energy efficiency of communication, and we obtain the theoretical device lifetime (for battery-operated devices), for three different hardware platforms. Under the assumptions in our study (including a simple 235 mAh battery, and periodic data transmission), the maximum, asymptotic, device lifetime is 573 days, whereas battery-operated router devices can also achieve 3-digit lifetimes (in days) in many scenarios. Our results also illustrate the impact on performance of BLE-level and application-level parameter settings, adaptation layer mechanisms such as IPv6 header compression, and device hardware characteristics.