Bluetooth Low Energy (Bluetooth LE, colloquially BLE, formerly marketed as Bluetooth Smart) is a wireless personal area network technology designed and marketed by the Bluetooth Special Interest Group (Bluetooth SIG) aimed at novel applications in the healthcare, fitness, beacons, security, and home entertainment industries.
Compared to Classic Bluetooth, Bluetooth Low Energy is intended to provide considerably reduced power consumption and cost while maintaining a similar communication range.
Mobile operating systems including iOS, Android, Windows Phone and BlackBerry, as well as MacOS, Linux, Windows 8 and Windows 10, natively support Bluetooth Low Energy. The Bluetooth SIG predicts that by 2018 more than 90% of Bluetooth-enabled smartphones will support Bluetooth Low Energy.