Bluetooth Low Energy ("BLE") is a radio standard developed in 2006 and integrated in Bluetooth 4.0 in December 2009. Formerly marketed as Bluetooth Smart.
Bluetooth Low Energy ("BLE" or "Bluetooth LE") is a faster and less energy consuming radio standard, developed by Nokia in 2006 under the name Wibree, which was integrated in Bluetooth 4.0 in December 2009 and launched to mass production in 2010 as part of the Bluetooth Core specification version 4.0. Version 4.1 was released in December 2013, introducing new network topologies and privacy features.
The first smartphone with Bluetooth 4.0 was the Apple iPhone 4S launched in 2011. Today, most smartphones, for example from Apple, Samsung and Nokia, have BLE capability.
Bluetooth SIG has defined various profiles and guidelines, which have to be respected. Devices can be in either peripheral (advertise data) or central mode (Scan for BLE devices).
Apple provided the central mode support in ios5 and added the peripheral mode support in ios6. Google has provided central mode support in android with the release of Android OS version 4.3 and added the peripheral mode support in Android 5.0.
