embedded world 2026

Presenter: Gillian Minnehan | Nordic Semiconductor

Bluetooth® Low Energy (LE) is a breakthrough technology that has enabled innovative solutions for applications requiring both reliable connections and extended battery life. However, firmware teams building these systems face several challenges: interoperability issues across Bluetooth® LE versions, environmental conditions not encountered in the lab, and unexpected negotiated parameters with peers. A device that performs flawlessly in the lab may struggle in the field due to factors that even the most sophisticated QA matrices cannot test. Therefore, delivering better results for users requires a comprehensive approach to observability of the Bluetooth® LE stack and battery life performance of fielded devices.

This talk will begin by exploring the key factors that impact Bluetooth® LE throughput, connection stability, and battery life. It will then dive into best practices for instrumenting fielded Bluetooth® LE applications, including collecting metrics such as disconnect counts, GATT MTU size, and connection latency. Finally, these approaches will be grounded in a practical, end-to-end example using Zephyr’s Bluetooth API, Nordic Semiconductor’s Bluetooth® LE technology, and Memfault’s on-device data collection and cloud aggregation.

Presenter: Jonathan Kaye | Ezurio

Bluetooth® Channel Sounding, introduced in Bluetooth Core 6.0, represents a major leap in wireless ranging, enabling centimeter-level distance measurements far beyond the limits of RSSI-based methods. This talk will explore the technical principles of channel sounding and explain why multi-antenna support is critical for achieving robust performance in complex, multipath environments. Using Ezurio’s BL54L15u Development Kits with the new dual-antenna plug-in board, together with software and GUI support from Metirionic, the session will highlight how developers can evaluate and validate the benefits of spatial diversity for precision positioning. The discussion will outline key use cases, from secure access and asset tracking to advanced indoor navigation, and provide a technical roadmap for bringing multi-antenna channel sounding into real-world Bluetooth applications.

Presenter: Donatien Garnier | Blecon Ltd

Bluetooth® technology has proven itself as a powerful foundation for building IoT networks, combining ubiquity, low power and scalability. The success of consumer services such as Apple’s Find My and Tile has demonstrated the enormous potential of Bluetooth based networks.

The same properties that drove adoption of these networks directly translate into the commercial and industrial domains, especially in the asset tracking space. However, beyond simple identification and locationing, these networking models can also be extended to collect data and deliver asset monitoring capabilities.

In this session, Donatien Garnier, co-founder of Blecon, will explore the key enablers from the Bluetooth standard and ecosystem, from advertising extensions to emerging features such as channel sounding, as well as supporting innovations like printed thin-film batteries. Drawing from real-world projects, we will share lessons learnt and provide practical insights into designing scalable beacon networks delivering asset visibility at scale.

Presenter: Alfredo Perez | Bluetooth SIG

Bluetooth® technology has been a cornerstone of wireless human interface device (HID) solutions for nearly two decades, driving the adoption and commercial success of wireless keyboards and mice, Bluetooth enabled remotes and gaming controllers, and other peripherals, with broad support across major operating systems.

However, emerging and more sophisticated wireless HID applications, such as FPS gaming and XR, must meet latency specifications beyond the current capabilities of standard HID implementations with Bluetooth Classic or Bluetooth LE. Therefore, to support these use cases, Bluetooth is introducing two new features that enhance HID performance over Bluetooth LE to achieve ultra-low latency.

The first feature, HID ISO, leverages the transport and synchronization advantages offered by Bluetooth Isochronous Channels (ISO) to enable faster HID report rates via a connected isochronous stream. The second feature, HID SCI, utilizes Bluetooth Shorter Connection Intervals (SCI), a new core feature that adaptively reduces the minimum LE connection interval, to increase HID report rates over LE ACL when needed. Overall, both HID ISO and HID SCI support report rates of 1 kHz or higher to target HID latencies of ≤ 1 ms.

This session will provide a technical overview of Bluetooth ULL HID, covering HID ISO and HID SCI in detail, and highlighting the technical merits and benefits offered by each for next-generation HID solutions.

Presenter: Jan Slupski | Telink Semiconductor

The HID over ISO Human Interface Device (HID) enhancement project is designed to significantly improve the responsiveness of Bluetooth gaming controllers, aiming to match the performance of USB-wired or proprietary wireless controllers. This advancement is crucial for latency-sensitive applications such as gaming, augmented reality (AR), virtual reality (VR), and mixed reality (MR) scenarios, where high polling rates and low latency are essential for an optimal user experience.
HID over ISO leverages Connected ISO (CIS), a feature supported since Bluetooth Core 5.2, at the Bluetooth Controller level. This approach eliminates the need for a Controller update, making it a practical and efficient solution. By using a small ISO Interval and further dividing it into smaller Sub-intervals (e.g., 1ms, 2ms) through Network Subsystem Encryption (NSE), HID over ISO aligns with the original data period SDU Interval of the Application layer. The isochronous transmission feature of ISO ensures consistent latency characteristics, enabling low-latency data transmission with a reporting rate of up to 1000 Hz.
In terms of upper-layer protocol enhancements, the HID over ISO Service was introduced, building upon the HID Profile V1.0. This new service includes several innovative concepts such as Hybrid Operation mode (combining GATT and ISO), the HID over ISO packet structure, and the HID over ISO Protocol. These elements facilitate service establishment, mode switching, and standard data transfer

Presenter: Damon Barnes | Bluetooth SIG

Bluetooth® technology remains the world’s most widely deployed wireless standard, with more than 5 billion devices shipping annually. By 2029, that number is expected to reach 7.7 billion, according to ABI Research, driven by continued growth across audio, data transfer, localization, and device network use cases. To maintain its momentum and address evolving demands of Bluetooth devices, Bluetooth® technology is advancing with the introduction of Bluetooth® High Data Throughput (HDT). This upcoming enhancement to Bluetooth LE will significantly increase data rates while improving energy efficiency and connection reliability. In this session, Damon Barnes, director of technical marketing, will provide a comprehensive overview of the HDT feature, explore its technical benefits, and demonstrate the technology in action.

Presenter: Martin Cuvelier | NXP Semiconductors

This presentation focuses on how Bluetooth® Low Energy (Bluetooth LE) can be integrated into a Modular Multi-Anchor Embedded System Architecture, to support Secure Vehicle Access and User Positioning. We present how advanced Bluetooth LE capabilities — such as channel sounding enabling precise ranging and Handover mechanism enabling seamless connection transfer between nodes via an out-of-band interface (e.g., CAN bus) — can significantly enhance user experience.

The proposed design illustrates how leveraging advanced Bluetooth LE features improves system robustness, security, and power efficiency. The architecture is based on a flexible setup of multiple Bluetooth LE anchors interconnected over CAN (or any other, like 10BASE-T1S Ethernet) for secure synchronization and communication. This system supports various vehicle access scenarios combining successive ranging operations with trilateration to estimate user’s position. Additional Bluetooth LE-based mechanisms such as dynamic anchor selection, real-time filtering, Connection-RSSI sniffing, and zone-based event triggering further enhance adaptability and real-time responsiveness.

This recommended design can be augmented to include Ultra Wide Band (UWB) as an example in automotive for Car Connectivity Consortium (CCC) compliant implementations.

Presenter: Bhargavi Nisarga | Texas Instruments, Inc.

Modern connectivity systems, such as automotive digital key platforms, rely on multiple wireless anchor nodes to cover an access environment for mobile tags like smartphones or key fobs. These nodes enable accurate ranging and localization of tags using UWB, Bluetooth RSSI, or channel sounding technologies by maintaining a continuous point to point Bluetooth LE connection with moving tags. In real-world scenarios, however, connection stability is often compromised when the tag moves away from its connected anchor node, resulting in link degradation, disconnection, and the need to re-establish connection with another node. This disconnect/reconnect cycle negatively impacts responsiveness and user experience.

This paper presents a novel system-level solution for seamless Bluetooth LE connection handover between anchor nodes. The proposed approach enables an active connection to migrate to a node with a superior link budget – without the smartphone tag being aware of the transition. From the tag’s perspective, the connection remains uninterrupted, addressing a critical gap in current Bluetooth specification, which does not support native connection handover.

We detail innovation at both the Bluetooth stack and multi-anchor system architecture levels, using automotive digital key car access systems as a representative use case. The paper also presents performance metrics based on connection handover implementation using Texas Instruments Bluetooth LE devices and software stack.

Presenter: Rudi Latuske | OpenSynergy GmbH

The new channel sounding feature in the latest Bluetooth® Core v6.0 is evolving the Bluetooth Low Energy stack into a security platform for developing precise real-time localization applications. This paper examines channel sounding together with the used distance measurement methods Phase Based Ranging (PBR) and Round Trip Timing (RTT). A detailed overview on these methods and their operation, radio controller and Host Controller Interface (HCI) extensions is provided, covering the deep integration of certain timing and RF features in controller and host stack based on methods for precise presence detection and distance measurement, as well as direction determination using angle of arrival and angle of departure (AoA/AoD) measurement methods. The Bluetooth configuration and function of devices such as mobile phones, tablets, IoT sensor and tags including PHY channels (1 and 2 Mbit/s) and antenna configurations will be explained as well.
In addition, the security characteristics of channel sounding and their use in various devices and applications will be analyzed, and an automotive secure key-less access system is used as an example of secure link setup to enable reliable verification of authorized key fobs. This includes discussion of the necessary interfaces, protection mechanisms, and design principles for secure Bluetooth LE localization applications in automotive, industrial, and smart access systems are discussed.