topic Re: BLE or not BLE? in Other/General

BLE or not BLE?

Tamarinen — Tue, 02 Jul 2013 21:35:56 GMT

According to the Xperia V specs, the phone has "Bluetooth 4.0".

According to Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bluetooth_low_energy , "Bluetooth 4.0" could mean "Bluetooth LE", "Bluetooth Classic" or both. Which of LE or Classic, or indeed both, does the Xperia V hardware support?

I'm aware that BLE is not supported in the Android version my phone is running at the moment, but is there any possibility that the phone eventually would be able to communicate with BLE devices I buy today?

Re: BLE or not BLE?

Alexander1 — Wed, 24 Jul 2013 13:51:45 GMT

Xperia V does not support Bluetooth LE at the moment. Unfortunately we don't have any information about what upcoming software updates will contain. I recommend that you check on our blog for latest info regarding software updates:

http://blogs.sonymobile.com/

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Re: BLE or not BLE?

Tamarinen — Mon, 29 Jul 2013 06:12:40 GMT

"At the moment" kind of hints that the hardware itself indeed is BLE capable, but the software is not. I still don't know for certain whether there is BLE hardware support or not, though.

Re: BLE or not BLE?

Uliwooly — Mon, 29 Jul 2013 06:21:21 GMT

it doesn't seem to be compatible with any Xperia http://www.bluetooth.com/Pages/Bluetooth-Smart-Devices-List.aspx

Re: BLE or not BLE?

Tamarinen — Mon, 29 Jul 2013 20:59:23 GMT

Does any Xperia run an Android version with BLE support yet? I guess the Bluetooth Smart compatibility lists only cover devices with hardware and software support, and if either one is missing, they won't be there.

Re: BLE or not BLE?

Kris_1 — Tue, 30 Jul 2013 12:28:39 GMT

I asked the same question and had got answers

http://talk.sonymobile.com/message/506046#506046

Re: BLE or not BLE?

Tamarinen — Tue, 30 Jul 2013 21:13:29 GMT

You got two answers; one that says what the manual say about Bluetooth profiles, complete with the ambiguous "Bluetooth 4.0" statement. (Bluetooth 4.0 can support Bluetooth Classic or Bluetooth Low Energy or both, and still be labeled Bluetooth 4.0. In this case, nothing definite is said about LE. We only know that Android 4.1 doesn't support LE, but 4.3 does. If the hardware support it.)

The other answer is a link to a blog post that says Xperia Z, ZL, ZR, Tablet Z, SP and Z Ultra will be upgraded to 4.3, plus that some, not specified, 4.1 devices will be upgraded, too. The only mentions of Xperia V in specific are wishes and wishful thinking.

I'm not trying to be negative here, but the question about whether the hardware itself support BLE, regardless of whether the software does or not, is still unanswered.

Re: BLE or not BLE?

Kris_1 — Wed, 26 Feb 2014 19:48:25 GMT

My MIO connected to Runtastic as I get Android 4.3 for Xperia V. Suppose that BLE is supported. My topic

Re: BLE or not BLE?

Tamarinen — Fri, 27 Jun 2014 05:27:55 GMT

Yes, the Xperia V hardware is capable of BLE, once the software to handle it was updated.