The Bluetooth gateway is an relay device that receives BLE data from terminal devices and uploads it to the server through the network. It serves as a Bluetooth bridge enabling non-IP BLE-devices to connect to the Internet, so that users are allowed to check status of BLE endpoint information from anywhere in the world, and control BLE devices by exchanging data bi-directionally.
For instance, one can use a Bluetooth gateway to interconnect BLE-enabled temperature and humidity sensors, air conditioners, and humidifiers at home, so as to achieve centralized and automated management, keeping your home within a consistent range to provide a comfortable living environment.
How Do Bluetooth Gateways Work?
A smart Bluetooth gateway is an IoT gateway hardware that integrates a Bluetooth module and other network communication modules (Ethernet, WiFi, Cellular LTE 4G, Zigbee, Z-Wave, etc.). The role of Bluetooth module in the Bluetooth gateway is to scan and connect nearby BLE devices, and and obtain data from scanned BLE devices.
High bandwidth network communication modules (Ethernet &WiFi, Cellular LTE 4G.) are used to send the gathered data, in the form of TCP/UDP, to the backend cloud server. If there is a control command, the server will forward the command over the Bluetooth gateway to the associated BLE terminal device. In this way, the Bluetooth gateways performs its bi-directional communication and device control functions.
The Bluetooth gateway may also add other communication modules, such as Zigbee, LoRaWAN, etc., in order to support more IoT application requirements. Bluetooth gateway may also be used in conjunction with other IoT gadgets like cloud servers, smart terminals, sensor nodes, etc., to form a more complete IoT system. Explore fundamental elements of IoT here.
Typical Bluetooth gateways also include a central processing unit for dealing with complicated tasks, and power management modules in charge of powering the entire device.
Dusun IoT offers a diverse selection of BLE gateways built on a variety of SoCs and MCU to assist enterprise developers in swiftly customizing their Bluetooth Low Energy gateways for system integration and proof of concept (POC).
Read More: BLE VS Bluetooth gateway, What’s the difference?
How Do Bluetooth Gateway Communicate with the Cloud?
HTTP and MQTT are two popular application layer protocols to make data exchange and communication between Bluetooth gateway device and the cloud. But we usually recommend to use MQTT for its advantages such as small code footprint, simple and compact architecture, publish-and-subscribe model, ideal for resource-constrained IoT scenarios.
Explore More on Bluetooth MQTT.
Types of Bluetooth Gateways
Bluetooth SIG has divided Bluetooth technology into four fit-for-purpose solutions: audio streaming, data transfer, location service, and device network. Bluetooth gateway involve three of them.
Bluetooth Data Transfer Gateway
Bluetooth GATT is a general specification for sending and receiving very short data segments over a Bluetooth connection. Bluetooth data transfer gateway adopts Bluetooth GATT to enables two-way communication.
Bluetooth gateway often plays the role of Central, and sub devices as peripherals. A peripheral can only be connected to one central device at a time, but the central device can be connected to
multiple peripherals. For Dusun IoT Bluetooth gateways, it can connect up to Dusun 32 devices at the same time.
Get to know details of Bluetooth GATT gateway here.
Bluetooth data transfer gateway are widely used for remote patient monitoring, especially with the popularity of wearable medical devices. Why use Bluetooth gateways instead of mobile APPs? Health data acquired from remote patient monitoring devices are crucial for medical diagnosis and treatment. Data packet loss and delay may lead to inaccurate judgments. Bluetooth gateways are used for ensuring stable and secure transmission and data integrity.
Get to know BLE IoT-based home health monitoring use cases :
- Continuous Glucose Monitoring
- Remote ECG Monitoring
- Remote Blood Pressure Monitoring
- Parkinson’s Disease Monitoring
- Remote Pulse Oximetry Monitoring
Bluetooth Location Positioning Gateway
In indoor positioning, the Bluetooth gateway plays an important role. It gathers and transfers the BLE data broadcast by the iBeacon device to the server for calculation. The background positioning algorithm will output the location information of the iBeacon after computation. There are two types of Bluetooth position service gateways, based on RSSI and AoA technologies:
Bluetooth Beacon Gateway based on RSSI
Received Signal Strength Indicator (RSSI) can be used to estimate the distance between transmitter and receiver. Once the power of the transmitter is known, the position of the items can be estimated by measuring the signal attenuation.
In Blutooth RSSI location tracking solution, a BLE beacon gateway reads the RSSI value from BLE beacons and upload it to a cloud server. The background server can calculate the distance between the iBeacon device and the Bluetooth gateway using this RSSI value, and the BLE Beacon device’s location may be shown in real time on the background map.
The Bluetooth gateway’s scanning range can also be designated as a safe region at the same time. The iBeacon gadget may sound a security alarm in the background once it exits the safe range. This is the working principle of BLE-based personnel and asset management solution.
Since RSSI can only roughly estimate the distance, if you consider that low cost is more important than increased accuracy, RSSI based location systems can be your choice. Furthermore, you can improve the accuracy level of RSSI-based indoor location systems by increasing the number of beacon/tag devices.
Bluetooth Beacon Gateway based on BLE AoA
Compared with Bluetooth RSSI, Bluetooth Angle of Arrival is obviously a much more accurate method for indoor positioning. The Bluetooth RSSI accuracy is generally within 3 to 5 meters, while BLE AoA positioning can reach to 0.1-0.5 meter average accuracy.
Bluetooth Angle of Arrival (BLE AoA) works by having a Bluetooth Tag transmitting a special direction-finding signal. While the receiving device, a AoA locator that has multiple antennas arranged in an array, receives the signal from the tag. When the signal passes through, it will generate a phase difference due to the different distances received in the array, and then the relative signal direction can be calculated, which greatly improves the accuracy of Bluetooth positioning, so as to provide much more accurate location services.
BLE AoA wins popularity not only because of its higher accuracy , but also thanks to its flexibility, high concurrency, low cost, low power consumption, and high compatibility, which means the IoT projects and solutions can effectively save costs brought about by large-scale positioning tag/beacon applications on various people, vehicles, and objects.
When you choose an indoor location technology, do remember that, there is no absolute advantages or disadvantages. The key point is to look at your application scenarios, you need to choose location solution and technology depending on what uses you want to serve, or the complexity, budget, robustness and so on.
Further read: Bluetooth RSSI vs BLE AoA vs UWB, which one is best for indoor positioning
Bluetooth Mesh Gateway
Bluetooth Mesh allows people to establish a many-to-many (m:m) relationship between wireless devices. Devices can also transmit data to other devices that are not directly covered by the original device’s radio signal. Mesh networks are able to connect a lot of devices and cover a lot of space physically. One of the biggest advantages of BLE mesh is that users can use mobile phone to access Bluetooth mesh network and manage all nodes, without relying on Bluetooth gateways. But once someone leaves the range of BLE mesh network, he cannot perform remote access, status check, and device control.
Bluetooth Mesh is widely used in smart lighting control, building automation, and smart agriculture. Dusun offers an all-in-one BLE mesh lighting solution package including 1 x BLE mesh gateway, 3xBLE mesh development kit, and quick start guides to enable you quickly deploy and test BLE mesh network function, and quickly connect to wireless lighting systems.
Customers can create simple to complex smart lighting products with Dusun BLE Mesh Gateway, and they can pick and choose the features that best suit their requirements. The Users can control everything through third-party applications without worrying about integration or developing their own applications. Dusun provides an open API, which helps you quickly configure our devices to your platform. The application solution has the advantages of reliability, scalability, high-level security, and easy integration.
Get Bluetooth mesh lighting control solution here!
Factors to Consider When Purchasing Bluetooth Gateway Devices
Bluetooth gateways are available in a variety of brands. What considerations should be taken into account when selecting a Bluetooth gateway? Dusun IoT recommends the following assets:
What you want to use the Bluetooth gateway for
- Data Acquisition: If it is used to regularly collect data from BLE sub-devices, such as using Bluetooth temperature and humidity sensors to collect environmental data, or BLE continuous glucose monitors to collect vital signs, and then upload the collected data to the server, generic BLE gateways are enough because this is the most basic function of a Bluetooth gateway.
- Continuous connection: If it is used for ongoing connection of BLE lights, blood pressure monitors, and other Bluetooth devices for data transmission applications, select Bluetooth gateways based on its concurrently connected number of BLE devices.
- Control BLE devices: If you require Bluetooth gateways to connect to BLE devices and control their switch status, you may select BLE gateways that enable broadcasting, scanning, and connecting all at once to simplify switching specific situations.
- Indoor positioning: If you need Bluetooth gateways for indoor positioning (personnel or asset positioning, you may select a business that specializes in indoor positioning technology, with engine position resources, and rich BLE AoA locator gateway installation experience. You can select Bluetooth edge computing gateway for deal with positioning algorithm.
Number of Bluetooth Connections
If you pick a Bluetooth gateway, you can use it to link Bluetooth products like beds, lamps, and blood pressure monitors for data transmission applications. You can select a Bluetooth gateway depending on how many Bluetooth devices need to be connected.
Broadcasting, Scanning & Connection Working Modes
It may be necessary for users to connect to Bluetooth devices, control switches, etc., as well as to collect data occasionally. At this time, when choosing a Bluetooth gateway, you need to choose a Bluetooth gateway that can support broadcasting, scanning, and connection at the same time. The Bluetooth gateway from DusunIoT supports three operating modes: broadcast, scan, and connect.
Installation scenarios for the Bluetooth gateways
- Indoor scenes: you can select Bluetooth gateways with inexpensive plastic enclosure.
- outdoor scenes: select waterproof Bluetooth gateways. If it is not convenient to deploy network cables, you may pick wireless Bluetooth gateways that supports WiFi or 4G mobile networks for easy installation and deployment. Explore Bluetooth LTE 4G gateway here.
- mobile scenes: select Bluetooth LTE 4G gateways that has lithium battery backup for long battery life. Explore portable BLE LTE WiFi gateway here.
- explosion-resistant scenes: some harsh industrial environments, such as chemical factories, gas stations, coal mines, etc., can benefit from Bluetooth gateways with explosion-proof metal casings. Explore industrial Bluetooth gateway here.
Bluetooth gateways’ filtering parameters
If there are many broadcasting data from a large quantity of BLE devices, the Bluetooth gateway may collect the broadcasting data of many irrelevant Bluetooth devices, which wll cause unnecessary interference. So when purchasing Bluetooth gateways, it is recommended that you should also consider the Bluetooth gateway’s filtering options. Commonly seen filtering approach includes RSSI, BLE device name, UUID of BLE beacons, etc.
Bluetooth gateways’ additional features
- WiFi: Bluetooth gateways are often equipped with 2.4GHz WiFi. If you want 5GHz with strong anti-interference capability at the same time, you can also choose dual-band WiFi Bluetooth gateways.
- 4G/LoRa/Zigbee: If you require Bluetooth gateways that can merge 4G LTE, Zigbee, or LoRa together to transfer data simultaneously, Dusun IoT offers multi-protocol Bluetooth gateways.
- Programmability: If you want to program the software part of Bluetooth gateways by yourself, such as the firmware, operating systems, applications, and so on, you may pick Bluetooth gateway devices that just provides pure hardware and driver.
Bluetooth Gateway Use Cases
Bluetooth gateways act as bridges between Bluetooth devices and the internet, allowing data to flow seamlessly between them. This unlocks a variety of applications across different sectors:
- Smart Homes and Smart Buildings: Gateways connect various Bluetooth-enabled smart home devices like thermostats, door locks, and sensors to a central hub. This allows remote monitoring and control, enhancing security, convenience, and energy efficiency.
- Health and Wellness: In the healthcare domain, BLE gateways play a crucial role in collecting data from wearables and health monitors. This data, including heart rate, blood sugar levels, and oxygen saturation, can be transmitted securely to healthcare providers for remote patient monitoring.
- Sports and Fitness: Fitness trackers, heart rate monitors, and other sports gadgets can connect to gateways, enabling users to track their performance metrics in detail. The data can be uploaded to fitness apps for analysis and to share progress.
- Asset Tracking and Inventory Management: Businesses can leverage Bluetooth gateways to track the location and status of assets and inventory in real-time. This improves logistics, optimizes resource allocation, and minimizes loss or theft.
- Industrial Automation: In industrial settings, Bluetooth gateways connect sensors and machines on the factory floor to a central network. This facilitates remote monitoring of equipment health, predictive maintenance, and data-driven process optimization.
- V2X: BLE is known for its low power consumption, low cost, and reliable short-range communication. These factors make Bluetooth gateways suitable for V2X applications like IVC, V2D, V2G, and V2P.
These are just a few examples, and the applications of Bluetooth gateways continue to evolve as the Internet of Things (IoT) landscape expands.
How to Use Bluetooth Gateways?
Step 1: find a place to install Bluetooth gateway
Before using Bluetooth gateways, find an appropriate place to position it at first. Take Bluetooth WiFi gateway as an example, the wireless signal strength and coverage varies depending on the actual environment, and may be affected by factors including concrete constructions, wall thickness, etc. For optimum Bluetooth and Wi-Fi performance and extend device lifespan, please:
1) Avoid placing the gateway in a location where it will be exposed to moisture or excessive heat.
2) Keep away from strong electromagnetic radiation sources and electromagnetic-sensitive devices.
3) Place the gateway in a spot where it can be wired up to a power supply and linked to the various sub devices.
You may place the Bluetooth gateway on a shelf or desktop, or paste the gateway on the ceiling and walls. We have PoE ceiling/wall mountable Bluetooth gateway for selection.
Step 2: Make primary configuration
Connect the gateway with a router and get the IP address of the gateway. Log in the gateway by inputing Gateway IP address on a web broswer. Enter username and password, then you can check the status of gateway information (host name, firmware version, local time, memory. Network, etc.)
Step 3: Finish Internet setting and LAN setting according to user manual.
A programmable Bluetooth gateway quick start guide – https://wiki.dusuniot.com/iot-gateway-hardware/dsgw-210-rk3328-gateway/quick-start-guide#83–ble
Step 4: Make Sub-devices Connection
The Bluetooth gateway works by scanning and connecting BLE devices. Users can use filtering options such as RSSI, BLE device name, MAC address to filter the specific devices you want and then connect. After the connection is established, Bluetooth gateway will caches the data structures of characteristics and services of the device. User can notify the value or write configuration to the BLE devices. Here we have a detailed demo about developing an application over Bluez APIs to manipulate BLE devices.
Step 5: Make Cloud configuration
After Bluetooth gateway recognizes the features and data structures of surrounded BLE devices, it can send the data to the cloud server through the MQTT(TCP/SSL) protocols. You need to fill in the parameters obtained from the Azure/AWS/Tuya platforms to enable gateway connected with the cloud. Then filled in the right value offered by MQTT broker. SSL certificate can be used to enhance the communication security, here we have an MQTT SSL example.
Customize or Off-the-shelf, Which Should I Choose?
As the application of Bluetooth in the Internet of Things becomes more and more popular, IoT projects and solutions’ desire to use cutomizable and programmable Bluetooth gateways for their business model upgrades is stronger and stronger.
Some IoT solution providers want to know about Bluetooth IoT gateway and use it as architectural references for their commercial custom solutions, like Dusun IoT’s partner Navigine, an indoor location solution supplier, adding our Bluetooth gateway into their indoor warehouse tracking solutions; Some software and hardware developers also want to know about programmable and modular Bluetooth gateways, because they want to develop hardware by themselves or develop applications firmware suitable for their businesses; Some IoT project operators also want to know about BLE gateways, they care about the reduced cost, ROI (return on investment), and future-proofing.
Whenever which kind of purchasers you are, there are usually two types of kinds:
Customizable Bluetooth Gateways
For large-scale IoT deployments connecting tens of thousands of devices, the economies of scale make customizable Bluetooth Low Energy gateways the most cost-effective option. Customers are allowed to design their own proprietary solution to suit the application’s specific needs and build their brand.
Ready-to-use Bluetooth Gateways
Off-the-shelf Bluetooth IoT gateways can be a more affordable and time-efficient option for small to midsize IoT applications. The design and development process is substantially simplified by its pre-certification, which removes the time-consuming and expensive testing and approval procedure.
Customers can choose to buy ready-made Bluetooth gateway products, but the off-the-shelf Bluetooth gateways on the market may not be able to meet their needs. More and more IoT developers choose to customize their own exclusive Bluetooth gateways. However, due to the complex structures, which is composed of many components such as processors, ARM storage, PCBA boards, various connectors, enclosure design, etc., it is not always that easy to self-develop Bluetooth gateways. A professional technical support team will be very helpful. Explore Dusun Developer Community here.
Dusun IoT provides modular-designed and programmable IoT Bluetooth gateways that can be quickly developed from the bottom of the hardware, supporting development from structure, hardware physical layer, software system layer, third-party platform layer, etc., making enterprises quickly develop highly customized IoT gateways suitable for their own business scenarios.
Recommended Bluetooth IoT Gateway Products
DSGW-210 Bluetooth Zigbee Z Wave Edge Computing Gateway
DSGW-210 IoT gateway supports Bluetooth 5.2 protocol and edge computing functions. It provides reliable connectivity for a wide range of wireless IoT devices. DSGW-210 IoT gateway’s modular architecture provides the ability to customize many gateway features providing an off-the-shelf solution that meets your exact needs. DSGW-210 IoT gateway has Bluetooth(BQB) Certification.
DSGW-210 IoT Gateway Bluetooth Performance
- • TX Power: 19.5dBm
- • Range: 150 meters minimum, open filed
- • Receiving Sensibility: [email protected]%BER
- • Frequency offset: +/-20KHZ
- • Frequency Range (MHz):2401.0~2483.5
- • Low Frequency (MHz):2400
- • High Frequency (MHz):2483.5
- • E.i.r.p (Equivalent Isotopically Radiated power) (mW)<10mW
- • Bandwidth (MHz):2MHz
- • Modulation: GFSK
DSGW-030 Bluetooth Wi-Fi Gateway
DSGW-030 IoT gateway is widely used in the smart home, intelligent security industry, and pension services. DSGW-030 IoT gateway supports Bluetooth 5.2 wireless protocol. Smart sensors can be connected through BLE. DSGW-030 IoT gateway has Bluetooth(BQB) Certification.
DSGW-030 IoT Gateway Bluetooth Performance
- Bluetooth Protocol: Bluetooth 5.2
- TX Power: 19.5dBm
- Range: 150 meters minimum, open filed
- Receiving Sensibility: [email protected]%BER
- Frequency offset: +/-20KHZ
DSGW-040 IoT Bluetooth LTE Gateway
DSGW-040 IoT Gateway supports Bluetooth 5.2 protocol and is a smart gateway with a DC power supply. It can control BLE device remotely, receives the data sent by the BLE devices, and sends it to servers. DSGW-040 IoT Gateway reserves the ZigBee3.0 function, Z-WAVE, Sub-G, and 4G LTE function. It can be used in various scenarios flexibly.
DSGW-040 IoT Gateway Bluetooth Performance
- TX Power: 19.5dBm
- Bluetooth: 19.5dBm
- Range: 150 meters minimum, open filed
- Receiving Sensibility: [email protected]%BER
- Frequency offset: +/-20KHZ
- Frequency Range (MHz): 2401.0~2483.5
- Low Frequency (MHz): 2400
- High Frequency (MHz): 2483.5
- E.i.r.p (Equivalent Isotopically Radiated power) (mW)<10mW
- Bandwidth (MHz): 2MHz
- Modulation: GFSK
DSGW-020 IoT Gateway
DSGW-020 IoT gateway is also a wireless router complying with the latest IEEE 802.11ac Wi-Fi standard and LTE 4G function. It offers continual high-speed data transmission for multiple devices at the same time. Built-in 600MHz processor provides powerful data handling capacity to improve wireless transfer efficiency. Meanwhile, a simultaneous dual-band with a middle power design on both bands makes the wireless connection more flexible and stable, especially over long distances. DSGW-020 IoT gateway supports Bluetooth wireless protocol. Therefore, the DSGW-020 IoT gateway can be used as a control center for smart homes and can connect to Bluetooth devices at the same time.
DSGW-020 IoT Gateway Bluetooth Performance
- TX Power: 19.5dBm
- Bluetooth: 19.5dBm
- Range: 150 meters minimum, open filed
- Receiving Sensibility: [email protected]%BER
- Frequency offset: +/-20KHZ
- Frequency Range (MHz):2401.0~2483.5
- Low Frequency (MHz):2400
- High Frequency (MHz):2483.5
- E.i.r.p (Equivalent Isotopically Radiated power) (mW)<10mW
- Bandwidth (MHz):2MHz
- Modulation: GFSK
Dusun IoT Bluetooth IoT Gateway Benefits
Low Cost and Energy Consumption
At present, Bluetooth is a cheaper wireless communication technology, and Bluetooth usage scenarios are very rich. Therefore, the shape of the Bluetooth chip is smaller and smaller, especially the Bluetooth low-energy chip. And the cost of Bluetooth chips is also gradually reduced. What’s more, Bluetooth devices usually consume low power, and changing battery takes place very rarely, so daily costs are lower
Powerful BLE Mesh Network
Bluetooth Mesh network allows devices to be installed over a wide area while maintaining communication among each BLE device. Bluetooth Mesh network allows direct communication directly between BLE devices within the wireless coverage range, or communication with devices outside the wireless coverage range through a relay device. In the Bluetooth Mesh network, the data packet loss rate and data transmission delay are superior to other mesh networks. Data can be sent from any node to the entire network. When a node fails, the entire network can still maintain normal communication, which has the advantages of convenient networking and strong anti-interference ability.
High Security
Bluetooth gateway secures device connections and data with mutual authentication and end-to-end encryption.
Better Data Transfer Performance in Close Distance
BLE 5 supports physical layer (PHY) transmission modes up to max. 2M, and the transmission speed can reach up to 2Mbps. The closer the BLE devices are the better the data transfer performance.
Higher Transmit Power
Dusun boosted the transmit power (TX) of each BLE beacon from 8 dBm to 19 dBm by installing a power amplifier intended for wide coverage areas.
Higher Sensitivity
The Dusun Bluetooth IoT Gateway includes a high-sensitivity new generation series Bluetooth chip from Silicon Labs.
Open Source
Customers can perform secondary development on the basis of the open-source nature of Dusun Bluetooth IoT Gateway to suit their particular requirements.
Frequently Asked Questions of Bluetooth Gateways
Usually Bluetooth gateways will have a power adapter. Some are also looking for using a POE power supply switch, which data and power supplies for the gateway are provided by a single network connection. You can read our ODM case study about cable-invisible PoE gateway customization.
