Role of BLE in proximity based automation of IoT: A practical approach

In this paper, we successfully demonstrate the role of Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) in automating the Proximity based solutions for Internet of Things (IoT) by considering a real world use case scenario. Devices in IoT must be low powered in order to extend their lifetime. BLE compatible AltBeacon is aptly suited for this purpose. We have developed an application to show how various disparate technologies are integrated together to form IoT paradigm. We use a fixed AltBeacon node which allows an application running on a smart phone to determine its proximity with respect to the AltBeacon node. Once the application finds that it is within the proximity of the AltBeacon node then we can control various IP enabled devices through RESTful Service. We have proposed a software framework which can be used to automate IoT based on the proximity. This framework can be extended to control any of the IP enabled devices for Home Automation and Industrial Systems. From our experiments we determined that 1.5m is an optimum range for proximity.