Bluetooth Technology as an Interactive Tool in the Internet of Things

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1 Bluetooth Technology as an Interactive Tool in the Internet of Things Nyeche Hakwumeru Prince Abstract Bluetooth technology is one of the leading growing technologies that has surface during the 21 st century, it has encompass every aspect of emerging technology that are used virtually in different industries. The main scope of this research is to educate, link and find a constructive method for the productivity and how communication can go beyond just sharing of information to expanding information into different forms with what most people use mobile technology within the 21 st century. The author will disseminate stringent history and development of how Bluetooth technology can be expanded to focus not primarily on information dispersal but with interaction with other mobile technology. Bluetooth technology has seen growth in Mobile telecommunication, Health Sectors, information technology, Engineering etc. All these sector of the industries has a purpose to the use of Bluetooth, but how can they use Bluetooth to interact with the user or his environment would be an interesting aspect. Making Bluetooth technology expand its range beyond wireless frequencies into wireless Network and wireless interconnectivity; spanning across greater distances. In so doing, converting short distances using bridges of wireless networks known as the Internet. Keywords: Bluetooth, wireless, technology, mobile technology, mobile telecommunication, social interaction, wireless networks, wireless sensor networks, internet of things, mobile computing, ubiquitous computing, Bluetooth technology Introduction Bluetooth is a technology developed by Ericsson in 1994 came to form the technology we use today in most mobile devices. It uses radio transmission which operating outside an unlicensed Industrial, Scientific and Medical Band of 2.4 to GHz. Which later various companies which promoted the technology such as Ericsson, Nokia, Intel, Toshiba and IBM; came to form the now Bluetooth Special Interest Group (SIG) (Bluetooth.com). To form a variant of globally connecting millions of devices through the internet, Bluetooth is a prospective technology that has the ability to make such breakthrough a possibility. Just imagine going to a grocery store and being able to look through the inventory for things you shop the most for. Think about walking into a boutique / mall and having a prerequisite alerting you of items that have gotten sales discount just by having your Bluetooth on from a mobile device or a mobile computer or just imagine entering a restaurant or even a transport system and paying via phone or mobile device wirelessly even before you get there. These are the innovation that can span through if properly looked on. The internet of Things is an idea that would make machines connect and understand one another without / less human interaction. What makes Bluetooth an ideal candidate in this picture will tell a greater meaning in the development of the technology that will present more connectivity and it s common among already existing technology and mobile devices. Page 1

2 As the 21 st century moves on, more and more technology will rise that will define the scope at which it either improves or limits the ones that we have currently. Looking at it from a perspective of a consumer, you might be asking how this technology can benefit me. Now with the rise in social applications and how people have mobile devices, the increase will ascertain that more; and how much people need wireless connectivity. In so doing information needs to be passed from one person to another. The broader scope of the internet of things and Bluetooth is very vast so the author is going to lessen the scope and pertain only to innovation that can spring forth which is expressed in section (IV) and security concerns on the existing technology. Therefore section (I) will describe a brief introduction to Bluetooth, Section (II) will illustrate and describe existing technologies and uses of Bluetooth and how it encompass to the Internet of Things, Section (III) will talk about the problems faced in the technology, Section (IV) will illustrate the methodology employed, potential ideas and innovation between Bluetooth and how it can bring greater connectivity with Internet of Things, Section (V) will conclude on the research and references. 1.1 Objectives Find a constructive way for communication to be more interactive with quality transmission and retrieval of information using existing technology with the aid of the Internet and Bluetooth technology Literature Review The internet of things is an idea that started over a decade ago and has since seen a rise in the development by various communities in the field. How can Bluetooth improve or contribute to such technology can be seen in Bluetooth Smart a new technology that encompass low use of Bluetooth technology and increase distance using mesh-technology (Bluetooth.com), users can be able to control basis home automated devices using current device present without any changes (Naveen Erasala, 2002). Due to the fact that Bluetooth currently is supported by many mobile devices, it makes it easier to be able to provide connectivity among these cross platform in addition such connectivity can be accessed from any device around the globe not necessarily that you have to be extremely close to the connected device but once close, wireless connectivity can still take place. Over the years, Bluetooth and many online developers has come up with ingenious ideas that change how we look at everyday devices, application and everyday appliances can become ubiquitous and with the application of Bluetooth along with wireless network and Wireless sensors. How these things (Stankovic, 2012) can function together goes a long way to describe why we need connectivity among devices that we use daily in our everyday endeavours. Beacon Technology in conjunction with Bluetooth Smart are now leading a frontier in the internet of Things bringing along Bluetooth technology into the mix, making things identifiable easily. Fig.2. Scatternet [Source: (Jaap Haartsen, 1999) ] Fig.1. Application Framework [Source: (Jaap Haartsen, 1999) ] The mec hani sm behi Page 2

3 nd Bluetooth technology can be described in the above Figures. Figure 1 describes the structural aspect of Bluetooth technology, which heavily depends on a network topology between physical, Network and the application aspect (Naveen Erasala, 2002). The Radio in the figure takes care of receiving and sending bitstream modulation. The Baseband defines timing, packets and framing. The link manager as the name implies is responsible of managing power, connection status and other management tasks. The logical link handles multiplexing higher level protocols. The audio data is linked directly to the baseband and audio control is layered over the logical link control. The RFCOMM and Network protocol provides different communication parameters. Therefore, Bluetooth uses an ad hoc, piconet structure which is referred to as scatternet technology in Figure 2. Scatternet sends bits of radio signals hence in piconets because these signal hops around a frequency of over 1600 hops/s which is the communication range at which Bluetooth technology comprises on, the hops causes the frequency waves to be generated in a randomized fraction. This makes Bluetooth more of a personal space technology unlike other radio technology such as Radio (AM/FM) or TV. Each Bluetooth network comprises of a Node which are made up of piconets of which each piconets describes a node called a Master and a Slave of which when a node belongs to multiple piconets they can be referred to as what is termed a Bridge (Bisdikian, 2001). As the name depicts, A Master is the like the head in a node and the Slave is like its servant who attaches itself to the Master to form these modulating hopping frequencies that scatters called piconets. So far as depicted by (Roch Guerin, 2001) classified piconets as being independent of one another and not certain which node chooses to become the master or slave but from the analysis describes the Scatternet technology as one where by a master is determined by having the highest available time and being the one able to hop quicker when in a Network. Thus once two nodes are joined in the same piconets and are hopping at the same frequencies, their clock synchronizes and they use the same hopping frequencies in the exchange of information (Mrs. Pratibha Singh, 2011) Problem Statement One of the greatest risk or rather ethical issues around Bluetooth technology is its security and privacy concern. The questions baffling critics has been, how secure is this Bluetooth technology? And over the years since it has suffice, there has been glitches of how information has been swindled and how it has been hacked. Never-the-less No great technology hasn t faced the tyranny demolished by security flaws or bugs that might be thwacked on any system. In line of trying to get Bluetooth as a frontier in the Internet of Things also comes with its own dilemma. Likewise the Internet of Things as promising as it could seems raises some privacy concern and security issues that deal with weak password and cross site scripting as examined by (Hewlett-Packard Development Company, 2014) report. The Internet of Things describes a future whereby all things are connected by means of wireless/wired to the internet, and when the author says Things it refers to items of the physical world which are attached or within sensors of these items connected to a network (Steve Hodges, 2013). Kevin Ashton layered the groundwork for the IoT at MIT s AutoID lab by making this ground statements "If we had computers that knew everything there was to know about things using data they gathered without any help from us -- we would be able to track and count everything, and greatly reduce waste, loss and cost. We would know when things needed replacing, repairing or recalling, and Page 3

4 whether they were fresh or past their best. We need to empower computers with their own means of gathering information, so they can see, hear and smell the world for themselves, in all its random glory. RFID and sensor technology enable computers to observe identify and understand the world without the limitations of human-entered data. (Lopez Research, 2013) By this time Bluetooth technology was at the brink of its Era, never knowing that one day, could also be relied on to achieve such spectacular features. Privacy/Health Concerns Weak Password Susceptible to Hacking ( Man-in-the-Middle Attack) MAC Spoofing Attacks PIN Cracking Attacks The above mentioned problems are what are considered when Bluetooth technology takes a leap into a broader network structure albeit we won t go into details as it is outside the scope of this research (Nateq Be-Nazir Ibn Minar, 2011). Privacy concern will raise an issue in the sense that, once more and more devices are connected to the internet, where this information goes to, who stores them and what if that information is used against a particular individual(s). Thus this will raise a concern for individual who will plan to use the future technology of Bluetooth and with so much radio waves been emitted in the environment, its only sceptical that one s health might or might not be affected due to the emission of radio waves every moment of the day. Weak password will also raise concern as well, as many things are connected to the internet especially when such things uses Bluetooth technology to collect data, definitely such system or software must encompass a model that is able to provide greater security identification pattern. Since all devices uses microchip sets or microcontrollers, therefore, there is a possibility that this technology could be susceptible to some form of hacking, although there are known threats and those unknown threats at the moment but when a technology becomes rapidly available then trends to find out loop holes will emerged to find out the plausibility of either by means of manipulation or control. Identifying devices and how these devices can be spoofed from their manufacture s identity or located using a device s MAC Address poses tension as well when a new technology is to be used this raising issues of information leakage as well Research Methodology In the implementation of this research, the author of this research decided to follow a mixed methodology. First of all, a Secondary Methodology will be employed followed by an Empirical methodology. Thus, this is to ensure that information that is gotten is properly used, data is analyzed and results can be gotten to be used in the continuous effort of improving the entire research idea. Secondly in terms of creating or developing a system that is ready, an Agile Methodology can be employed to tackle the system development cycle of this research thus, if any given system is used in place to expand this research, this methodology is a preferred solution in place to follow. Using such concept, the author will base most of the preliminary finding on observation and how the hardware aspect of Bluetooth will interact to achieve the author s designs. The concept is relatively simple, and it employs basic fundamental or rather rudimentary aspect of technology we all know and use which is mobile devices. 4.1 Work Plan and Implications The author s preliminary work plans includes designing a compatible mobile application, which is able to use the Bluetooth schema from a mobile phone or mobile device in communication pattern with other Bluetooth compatible devices. What the author envisions is to enable and use the internet in conjunction with Bluetooth technology to provide communication among different individuals as well as enable those devices to be able to Page 4

5 interact with the users. What the author is targeting as an innovative aspect of this research is described below: Bluetooth Voice Calls Providing wireless voice calls between Bluetooth enable devices, original audio waves will be transferred within a PAN and WAN Network. Bluetooth File Sharing over Cloud Technology Enabling a way whereby connected devices can have access to files or share files with each other or with other devices even after physically Bluetooth connected has been lost. This is rather carried over an Internet Protocol. Bluetooth Video Calls Enables the mobile devices to be able to make video calls in as much the same way a voice call would be implemented, even when not in a PAN area, information is securely transmitted over the Internet. Device Searching by means of a Unique Identifier one of the ways the author is targeting would be by using an address as the unique identifier in identifying other Bluetooth devices that are connected over the Internet. Thus tagging the device s MAC address and tying it up with a Central Database to identify devices. Sharing of Internet connectivity and Device Lock Mechanism (which include physical structures with sensor ability) with the aid of Bluetooth and Internet technology. With the aid of Bluetooth Smart currently version 4.2, Bluetooth technology will be able to perform with the below specification (Bluetooth.com): An intelligent wireless connection to authenticate and manage interactions An extremely power-efficient connection that doesn't drain the user's phone battery Nearly ubiquitous support from phone manufacturers and mobile operating systems Thus the author has come with an idea to create an application able to render services of which these Bluetooth devices will be able to conform with and allow the users to be able to control, use and interact with well known object. Preliminary areas of interest include: Universities/Schools Offices Homes These areas were targeted to ensure that communication is rapidly dispersed among individuals who normally lurk or engage in activities. An illustrative architecture below will demonstrate the author s vision in this given research project. Page 5

6 Fig.3. Bluetooth Internet Architecture 5.0. Conclusion Fig.4. Network Control System [Source: In the process of advancing science and technology an innovation must spring forth in order to drive the frontier in the quest for greater knowledge and for the betterment of mankind. Bluetooth technology shows a prospectus in bringing each and every devices connected to the Internet, and making the Internet of Things a reality. Albeit the finalization might not be too far ahead, the construct and idea the technology promises makes it an ideal candidate in improving the lives of individuals and how they communicate with one another and how computers can interact with users. In so doing, combining Bluetooth technology and the internet can help in various aspect of the Industrial and Academic sector. For starter, consumers will be able to share much more information easily at their own convenience, students can be able to communication of a free scale around campus areas, and information can be communicated to them at the same time. The possibility is vast but brings and reduces cost of communication on the long run. This way we can curb the cost it will take to talk over the internet as well as pay for using such services especially when such prices are statistically placed value of using such a service. This way communication will be on an open medium that binds connectivity. Reducing cost of communication, providing security of information and Page 6

7 expanding experience; on how mobile devices can learn, react and provide better information especially between people or individual who uses them on an everyday scale. With the help of Sensors, Bluetooth and the Internet, information can be easily passed across, there would be less restriction on how information can be used and in what form it can be used. The internet and Bluetooth will change the way we see our everyday lives by bringing it one step closer together when multiple devices are able to communicate with less hassle and when such communication will make mankind interact more with others. References [1] Bisdikian, C. (2001, June 25). An Overview of the Bluetooth Wireless Technology. Retrieved from IBM Research Division: 56AA000700E03/$File/RC22109.pdf [2] Bluetooth.com. (n.d.). Fast Facts - Bluetooth Technology Website. Retrieved January 16, 2015, from [3] Hewlett-Packard Development Company. (2014, September). Internet of Things Research Study. Retrieved January 16, 2015, from [4] Jaap Haartsen, M. N. (1999). Bluetooth: Vision, Goals, and Architecture. Mobile Computing and Communications Review, I(2), 1-8. [5] Lopez Research. (2013). An Introduction to the Internet of Things (IoT). San Francisco, CA: Lopez Research LLC. [6] Mrs. Pratibha Singh, M. D. (2011, August). A Modern Study of Bluetooth Wireless Technology. International Journal of Computer Science, Engineer and Information Technology (IJCSEIT), [7] Nateq Be-Nazir Ibn Minar, M. T. (2011, July). A Secured Bluetooth Based Social Network. International Journal of Computer Applications ( ), [8] Naveen Erasala, D. C. (2002). Bluetooth technology: a strategic analysis of its role in global 3G wireless communication era. Computer Standards & Interfaces(24), [9] Roch Guerin, E. K. (2001). Bluetooth Technology Key Challenges and Initial Research. Philadelphia, PA. [10] Stankovic, J. A. (2012). Research Directions for the Internet of Things. Retrieved January 16, 2015, from [11] Steve Hodges, S. T. (2013). Prototyping Connected for the Internet of Things. IEEE Intelligent Systems, Page 7