Creating a State-of-the Art, Cost Effective Energy Harvesting Bluetooth® Low Energy Switch

Creating a State-of-the Art, Cost Effective Energy Harvesting Bluetooth® Low Energy Switch

ON Semiconductor

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As IoT rapidly grows into new markets such as MHealth, Agriculture 4.0, and building automation, new questions are being raised about the energy required to support its growth. Within the industry, we see a broad spectrum of power requirements.

Summary

This ON Semiconductor white paper outlines how to design a cost-effective, state-of-the-art Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) switch that runs from harvested energy. It explains trade-offs across energy sources, power-management circuits, energy storage, and BLE firmware strategies so readers can build reliable batteryless or ultra-low-power IoT switches.

Key Takeaways

Identify appropriate energy-harvesting sources and match them to suitable PMICs and converter topologies.
Calculate a realistic power budget and design cold-start and energy-storage strategies (supercapacitor or thin-film battery).
Implement BLE firmware optimizations (advertising, connection intervals, sleep states) to fit within harvested-power constraints.
Select integrated components and BOM techniques to minimize cost while maintaining reliability and lifecycle performance.
Validate system behavior under variable harvest conditions with test cases and power-profile measurements.

Who Should Read This

Embedded hardware and firmware engineers, IoT product designers, and technical leads who are developing batteryless or ultra-low-power BLE devices and need practical guidance on energy-harvesting system design and trade-offs.

Still RelevantIntermediate