Bluetooth Automation IO, and its place in a cable replacement solution

Bluetooth Automation IO, and its place in a Cable Replacement Solution: With the rise of the Internet of Things (IoT) and a desire for connectivity between even the smallest devices, several low powered wireless technologies are fighting for a place in the IoT market. The Automation IO profile for Bluetooth Low Energy was designed to provide a low-level standardized way of exposing digital and analog inputs/outputs on a Bluetooth enabled device, and to give Bluetooth LE a chance in the IoT and automation market. Automation IO is a relatively new profile, and there doesn’t exist a proper evaluation of its uses or requirements. This thesis intends to bridge that gap by providing a thorough assessment of the Automation IO profile, its practical use cases, how to integrate it into an actual cable replacement module, as well as investigate its place in IoT and automation. To examine whether Automation IO has a spot in IoT and automation, we first had to evaluate the underlying technologies. We did this by conducting a comparative investigation of Bluetooth LE compared to other low-powered wireless technologies. We also evaluated the Automation IO profile by investigating how to include it in an actual cable replacement module, how it interacts with an existing solution, as well as what practical use cases exist for the profile. By integrating an Automation IO Service into an existing cable replacement module, we investigate the requirements for such a module and provide hardware requirements and recommendations for how this integration can be accomplished. The result of this thesis shows that Bluetooth LE is a powerful tool for connectivity in hardware restricted devices, and compares well with other low-powered wireless technologies. Bluetooth LE does, however, lack some of the benefits of mesh networking necessary for an extensive home automation system. The Automation IO profile is shown to provide a flexible, standardized protocol for exposing I/Os for most generic I/O modules. Our investigation also shows several benefits of having this as a standardized profile, rather than having vendor specific custom solutions.Imagine if there was a way to control and interact with any low-level device wirelessly, the possibilities would be endless. The Bluetooth Automation IO profile attempts to do just this. Today you can find Bluetooth almost everywhere; it is in cars, phones, headsets, portable speakers, etc. Bluetooth has recently made its way into smaller-, embedded-systems and can now be found in even the smallest devices. Just as you can play music from your phone to any portable speaker, regardless of its manufacturer, imagine if there was a way to interact with all of these small devices in a standardized way. Bluetooth profiles are what allows this fantastic compatibility between devices and specify how devices communicates to accomplish use cases, such as streaming audio between a phone and a speaker. Automation IO is such a profile for low-level communication between any arbitrary device