Bluetooth connection oriented channels is supported by iOS

A long time ago the Bluetooth SIG had BET groups (I have no idea what BET means anymore) and the BETs were chartered to define roadmaps to address vertical market needs. It should be noted that the BETs only existed for a short time and the model changed. I wanted to extend Bluetooth LE beyond GATT to better enable us to do our own applications by extending the multiplexing mechanism (l2cap) in Bluetooth and so I went to the BET with some ideas:

• Enable use cases such as TCP/IP and bulk transfer etc over LE
• Free developers from ATT and allow them to do their own transport protocol
• Increase speed by eliminating ATT overhead and (b)locking
• Have simultaneous "virtual connections" between devices that shares a bearer.

There were ~3 persons very active in the Sports and Fitness BET of which the other ones were KC of company NN and the 3rd person was probably DT of company C. A very small group to rule over all sports use cases in world. We wrote a roadmap for all sports profiles to be worked upon by the Sports and Fitness WG and then I got this feature added as a requirement for the next core. The feature was added to Core v4.1 in the nick of time. I went on to push l2cap into various working groups and out came IPv6 SS and Object Transfer (OT) using l2cap.

• Object Transfer is a very elegant way to move e.g. binary files developed by the Sports and Fitness WG.
• IPv6 SS allows coin cell devices to speak 6LoBLE and network globally.

Only core features that are actually used have a chance to take off. Unfortunately, these services did not take off as the phones were missing l2cap channel support and it has taken far more time than I ever expected.

The embedded IC manufacturers are supporting this feature well since years and needed no marketing. I had almost given up hope but now Apple is launching l2cap channels. I can only say that I am incredibly happy (Thank you Apple!) and relieved that the effort was not wasted. The performance seems excellent (green bar) although I don't understand enough of iOS. I hope all other Bluetooth services will follow and we soon find l2cap channels everywhere.

This blog has been read by the Bluetooth SIG Executive Director with the comment that I should ask the persons named if they like to be mentioned. There were quite many names so instead names were obfuscated or removed.