InPlay Leverages Bluetooth
Technology for Next-Level
Industrial IoT Innovation

Why does InPlay choose Bluetooth technology for these solutions?

With excellent performance in terms of low power consumption and data transfer, Bluetooth^® LE has been rapidly adopted in the consumer electronics application markets, such as smartphones. After years of development, Bluetooth LE expanded from traditional data transfer applications for wearable devices to wireless IoT applications built on low-power local area networks. The Bluetooth standard has been enhancing and supporting security, networking, communication range, and data throughput over the years as the market continues to grow and evolve. The major advantages of Bluetooth technology are its compatibility with the smartphone ecosystem and running at ultra-low power consumption. These features are exactly what wireless IoT system developers dream of — compatibility with mainstream industrial ecosystems, low power consumption, security, and efficiency. Therefore, InPlay has taken Bluetooth technology as the underlying standard for its leading SoC products.

What challenges have your clients solved by adopting Bluetooth enabled InPlay IIoT solutions?

With InPlay, Shanghai Advanced Avionics has implemented unified management for thousands of asset beacons. The asset management is built upon bi-directional real-time communication between base stations and nodes. The real-time, reliable service greatly improves management efficiency. The main requirements of the asset management market are toed to the cost of deploying high-volume tracking hardware maintenance costs, information accuracy, and security. Features of the Bluetooth^® protocol stack, such as periodic broadcast and periodic synchronization, support bi-directional communication between thousands of wireless nodes in a single star network with minimal impact on the low power consumption of the system at the end node. InPlay’s network protocol adds real-time communication capability.

In addition, the long-range feature of Bluetooth technology enables new applications. In warehouses or workshops covering areas of tens of thousands of square meters, only a minimum number of Bluetooth base station devices are required for management of all assets. This significantly reduces the cost of system deployment while improving the efficiency of system management. Security features are also a key requirement for asset management systems. InPlay’s Bluetooth enabled solutions ensure data authentication and encryption over the wireless links, freeing customers from the hassle of security design.

What future IIoT solutions are you focusing on, and what potential applications will Bluetooth technology bring to industrial and commercial markets?

Due to the complex internal environment of a factory, the demand for highly reliable, real-time wireless communication capability is increasing. Thanks to the latest developments in the Bluetooth^® ecosystem, I believe the standard has infinite potential in future industrial and commercial markets. Bluetooth technology will play a greater role in the future development of active RFID and wireless sensor nodes.