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I'm dealing with the following challenge. In my system, there are two devices. Tags and anchors. Tags have BLE module with the transmit power 0dBm and not Long Range feature (BLE 4.0). Anchors have BLE module with transmit power over 8dBm and Long range feature (BLE 5.0).

I want tags to only receive some commands. Bi-directional communication is not necessary. This way, I can utilize the transmit power of anchor (8dBm) and thus quite bigger range, if tag with 0dBm is only receiving.

I read something about Observer/Broadcaster principle, where connecting is not necessary. But somehow devices have to agree on what frequencies should they hop on, the step and so on.

I'm asking, is it possible for device to only receive commands without previous negotiation with the sender?

Thank you very much for help. I'm beginning with BLE standard and there is a lot to learn.

Radim955
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Yes, it is possible to send data via adverts/scanning only. This way, there's no connection that needs to be established, and therefore no connection parameter negotiation takes place. As for the frequency hopping agreement - this happens via the baseband (in other words you will not deal with this in the software yourself) and is generally not applicable for advertising/scanning (these happen on 3 frequency channels only and therefore it is likely that the observer will catch what the broadcaster is broadcasting).

However, keep in mind that because you are broadcasting/advertising the data as opposed to directly sending it, that data can be received by any observing/scanning BLE devices which is not desired for safety/security/privacy purposes.

For more information on BLE communication, I recommend the links below:-

Youssif Saeed
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