Periodic Advertising with Responses enables bidirectional communication between a central access point and thousands of low-power devices without individual connections. The AP broadcasts commands in periodic advertising subevents; devices respond in designated response slots. Designed for electronic shelf labels (ESL): one AP can manage 10,000+ price tags, each updating on command and responding with acknowledgment.

What is Encrypted Advertising Data?

Encrypted Advertising Data allows advertising payloads to be encrypted so only intended receivers can decode them. Previously, all advertising data was plaintext. This enables secure connectionless use cases like asset tracking (preventing unauthorized tracking) and secure beacons (preventing spoofing). Uses AES-CCM encryption with a shared key.

Electronic shelf labels in retail stores need infrequent updates (price changes) pushed to thousands of e-ink displays. PAwR lets a single AP address individual labels within periodic advertising subevents. Each label wakes only for its assigned subevent, responds with ACK, then sleeps. Battery life exceeds 5 years on a coin cell. This replaces proprietary 2.4 GHz protocols.

Wireless Protocols

Bluetooth 5.4

Bluetooth 5.4 (released February 2023) introduced Periodic Advertising with Responses (PAwR) for scalable bidirectional communication with thousands of low-power devices without individual connections, and Encrypted Advertising Data for secure connectionless broadcasts. PAwR enables electronic shelf label (ESL) deployments where one access point manages 10,000+ e-ink price tags, each responding with acknowledgments. Battery life exceeds 5 years on a coin cell.

Category: Wireless Protocols

Released: February 2023

Understanding Bluetooth 5.4

PAwR divides periodic advertising into subevents. Each subevent contains commands for a subset of devices. Devices are assigned to specific subevents and wake only for their slot. After receiving a command, the device transmits a response in a designated response slot within the same subevent. This creates a structured polling mechanism without connection overhead.

Encrypted Advertising uses AES-CCM with a pre-shared key. The advertising data includes a nonce and authentication tag. Only devices with the key can decrypt the payload, preventing eavesdropping and spoofing of asset tracking beacons.

PAwR Capacity

Subevents per interval: up to 128
Response slots per subevent: configurable
Devices per AP: 10,000+

ESL power (1 update/day):
Wake: ~2 ms, sleep: 86,398 s
Avg current: <1 μA → 5+ yr on CR2032

Bluetooth 5.x Feature Timeline

Version	Year	Key Feature	Target
5.0	2016	2M/Coded PHY	Speed/Range
5.1	2019	Direction Finding	Positioning
5.2	2019	LE Audio/LC3	Audio
5.3	2021	Connection Subrating	Efficiency
5.4	2023	PAwR, Encrypted Adv	IoT Scale

Common Questions

Frequently Asked Questions

What is PAwR?

Bidirectional periodic advertising with response slots. One AP manages 10,000+ devices without connections. Designed for ESL retail deployments.

Encrypted Advertising?

AES-CCM encrypted advertising payloads. Only keyed receivers decode. Prevents tracking eavesdropping and beacon spoofing.

ESL use case?

E-ink price tags wake for assigned subevent, receive update, ACK, sleep. 1 update/day = <1 μA avg = 5+ years on CR2032.

Related Terms

← Bluetooth 5.3 Bluetooth 6.0 →

IoT Scale

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