A $15.90 Bluetooth LE board with a screen and an IMU
Plus: earbuds that pair with anyone nearby, and Ceva partners with LG on UWB
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This Week in Bluetooth & UWB |
Sep 11, 2026 |
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In This Issue
→ Earbuds pair with anyone nearby
→ $15.90 for a screen and an IMU → Auracast in the classroom → Ceva and LG partner on UWB |
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Learn by Doing
Bluetooth LE Unplugged teaches the protocol through AT commands over a serial port, so there is no SDK to install and no toolchain to fight. You start with Understanding AT Commands and Your First Scan, then How AT Commands Map to the Stack connects what you typed to GAP and GATT. Two BleuIO Standard dongles ship to your door. From $199.
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Bluetooth
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CERT Coordination Center
Skullcandy Dime 3 wireless earbuds, running firmware version 1.0.0.28, accept a new Bluetooth Classic (BR/EDR) pairing request from an unpaired device without requiring the earbuds to be placed into pairing mode. This vulnerability was previously disclosed in CVE-2025-20701 and is described as: In the Airoha Bluetooth audio SDK, there is a possible way to pair Bluetooth audio device without user consent. Skullcandy considers the patch in firmware version 1.0.0.30 to be effective. As of CERT/CC’s September 8 advisory, there are no known consumer-accessible methods to update an existing unit to that version.
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Hackster.io
Seeed Studio has launched a trio of tiny smart display boards, all powered by its XIAO nRF52840 Plus microcontroller board. All include the same Nordic nRF52840 chip and a six-axis inertial measurement unit (IMU). All models include Bluetooth Low Energy connectivity, but no Wi-Fi. The new display boards are now available to order on the Seeed Studio store, priced at $15.90 for the 0.96" version, $16.90 for the 1.14" version, and $19.90 for the range-topping 1.47" model.
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Business Wire
SMART Technologies announced SoundFlow, a new classroom audio accessibility solution. Using Auracast technology, SoundFlow creates a simple one-to-many audio broadcast from a SMART Board display to students’ compatible hearing aids, earbuds, headphones, personal listening devices or speakers. From the familiar SMART iQ4 interface, teachers can start or stop a broadcast, manage access, password-protect the channel and limit the broadcast range without interrupting the lesson.
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Automotive World
The Car Connectivity Consortium (CCC) held Plugfest #19, a digital key interoperability testing event hosted by Geely Holding Group in Ningbo, China from 7 to 10 September 2026. The four-day event tested CCC Digital Key Version 3 and Version 4 implementations against Bluetooth Low Energy, Near Field Communication, and passive entry scenarios. China installed digital keys in 13.3 million passenger vehicles in 2025, a 58.1% installation rate.
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HackerNoon
Systems architect Vitaliy Gribko built an iOS app called BeaconIL that attempts to solve the indoor positioning problem using Bluetooth Low Energy beacons and a non-linear optimization algorithm ported from numerical computing. As he describes the problem: satellite positioning gets you to the building. Inside the building, it abandons you. Concrete and steel kill the signal. Inside a warehouse, a hospital, a shopping mall, an airport terminal, you are invisible to every satellite constellation humanity has launched.
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Engadget
In practice, the use of Bluetooth jammers is almost always illegal. There are jammers for GPS, radar, Wi-Fi, cellular signals and even drones, all of which work on the same basic principle: broadcasting large amounts of radio noise that drowns out anything else. The usage of any jammers, Bluetooth included, is illegal in most countries, with minimal exceptions like military applications. In the United States, it is outlawed in the Communications Act of 1934 and further solidified by Federal Communications Commission (FCC) rules.
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Ultra-Wideband (UWB)
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PR Newswire
On September 9, Ceva, Inc. and LG Electronics announced a collaboration that brings together their complementary baseband, software and RF technologies to deliver a complete Ultra-Wideband (UWB) solution for semiconductor and OEM companies developing next-generation automotive, industrial and consumer products. The collaboration pairs Ceva-Waves UWB baseband IP and software with UWB radio frequency (RF) technology developed by LG’s SoC Center. LG’s UWB RF supports TSMC’s 22nm process.
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PR Newswire
SMiT will unveil its Presence-Aware TV platform anchored by a CI+ 2.0 USB dongle integrating Ultra-Wideband (UWB) technology at IBC2026. The platform brings together SMiT’s TV-access hardware, the TrueSense UWB integration layer, The Hashgraph Group’s BrandBoost TV Awareness product, and Sofia Digital’s TV application and user-interface capabilities.
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P.S. The new Seeed boards include Bluetooth Low Energy but no Wi-Fi, which feels like the right call at that size. If you have built a badge or a wearable in that class, I’d love to hear what you picked and why.
— Mohammad Afaneh
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