Bluetooth Low Energy
wireless personal area network technology designed and marketed by the Bluetooth Special Interest Group aimed at novel applications
Bluetooth Low Energy (Bluetooth LE, colloquially BLE, formerly marketed as Bluetooth Smart) is a wireless personal area network technology designed and marketed by the Bluetooth Special Interest Group (Bluetooth SIG) aimed at novel applications in the healthcare, fitness, beacon, security, and home entertainment industries. Compared to Bluetooth Classic, Bluetooth Low Energy is intended to provide considerably reduced power consumption and cost while maintaining a similar communication range.
BLE and Bluetooth Classic use different sets of radio frequencies, and BLE is, therefore, independent of classic Bluetooth, and has no direct compatibility. However, Bluetooth Basic Rate/Enhanced Data Rate (BR/EDR) and BLE can coexist. The original specification was developed by Nokia in 2006 under the name Wibree, which was integrated into Bluetooth 4.0 in December 2009 as Bluetooth Low Energy.
Mobile operating systems including iOS, Android, Windows Phone and BlackBerry, as well as desktop computer operating systems including macOS, Linux, Windows 11, Windows 10 and Windows 8, natively support Bluetooth Low Energy.
Compatibility
Bluetooth Low Energy is distinct from the previous (often called "classic") Bluetooth Basic Rate/Enhanced Data Rate (BR/EDR) protocol, but the two protocols can both be supported by one device: the Bluetooth 4.0 specification permits devices to implement either or both of the LE and BR/EDR systems.
Bluetooth Low Energy uses the same 2.4 GHz radio frequencies as classic Bluetooth, which allows dual-mode devices to share a single radio antenna, but uses a simpler modulation system.
Branding
In 2011, the Bluetooth SIG announced the Bluetooth Smart logo so as to clarify compatibility between the new low-energy devices and other Bluetooth devices.
Bluetooth Smart Ready indicates a dual-mode device compatible with both classic and low-energy peripherals.
The public source identifies “Bluetooth Low Energy” as wireless personal area network technology designed and marketed by the Bluetooth Special Interest Group aimed at novel applications. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Bluetooth, Energy and wireless.
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Attribution, date and provenance are strongest when supported by the original work, a catalogue record and documented transmission. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 6, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q1638779. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 2006, 2009 and 2011.
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This entry incorporates text from “Bluetooth Low Energy” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.