This Week in Bluetooth & UWB

July 17, 2026

In This Issue

→ New tool consolidates BLE testing
→ Seeed's board debuts Nordic chip
→ A fake cabin tests Bluetooth audio
→ Murata hits under 1m UWB accuracy
→ Aqara UWB lock works 70% smooth

What I'm Working On

Most current traces just give you a squiggly line and leave you guessing which part of the code caused the spike. That's the gap I've been building PowerScope to close: a power-profiling extension for VS Code (coming soon) that gives you a ranked, event-by-event breakdown of where your power budget goes, and flags the one spike that quietly drains a coin cell early (same theme as the brown-out post). The decoder's already bench-verified on real nRF54L15 and nRF54LM20 hardware, and I'm still looking for a few early beta testers before it goes public.

Bluetooth LE Security Testing, Consolidated: Introducing Caeruleus

Security Boulevard (Praetorian)

Praetorian built Caeruleus, a single Go binary covering the whole BLE lifecycle on top of the BlueZ stack for Linux, to replace what it calls "the BLE testing tax": a scavenger hunt across tools never designed to work together, hcitool and gatttool (both deprecated), bettercap's ble.recon and ble.enum, and custom Bleak scripts. Caeruleus lets you scan, enumerate, read/write/notify characteristics, fuzz, run structured security assessments, and emit results in structured JSON.

Seeed Studio Devboards Use Nordic's nRF54LM20A for Low-Power IoT

Electronics Weekly

Seeed Studio is releasing its XIAO nRF54LM20A and XIAO nRF54LM20A Sense development boards, based on Nordic's new nRF54LM20A SoC. The compact, ultra-low-power wireless boards feature a 128 MHz Arm Cortex-M33 processor, 512 KB RAM, 2 MB on-chip NVM, and multiprotocol 2.4 GHz wireless connectivity, aimed at wearable motion tracking, battery-powered Bluetooth LE sensor nodes, Matter/Thread/Zigbee smart home devices, and TinyML edge AI sensing. The Sense variant adds an onboard IMU and digital microphone, priced at $15.90 versus $9.90 for the standard board.

Microsoft Built a Fake Airplane to Test Windows 11's Shared Audio

Windows Latest

Microsoft built a full mock airplane cabin, later turned into a short behind-the-scenes film, to test Windows 11's Shared Audio feature, which uses Bluetooth LE Audio broadcast streams so two people can listen to Windows audio on two different Bluetooth devices at once (speakers, headsets, or even hearing aids). Marcus Ash, who leads Design and Research at Microsoft, said the team built the cabin because it wanted the integration to feel human, not just "technical."

I Turned an ESP32 Into a Bluetooth Presence Sensor

How-To Geek

A simple ESP32 microcontroller can double as a room-level Bluetooth presence sensor. Bermuda, a custom integration installed via HACS, estimates which Bluetooth proxy is closest to a device using signal strength, then maps that proxy's assigned area to determine which room the device is in. Since iPhones and Apple Watches use rotating Bluetooth MAC addresses, a separate Private BLE Device integration checks each new address against the device's Identity Resolving Key (IRK) to confirm it's still the same device.

CargoBeacon EverTag Scales Tracking With Wirepas Mesh

WIoT Group

Swedish company CargoBeacon combines Wirepas Mesh, Bluetooth Low Energy and NFC in its EverTag platform, a battery-powered infrastructure for asset tracking and condition monitoring across industrial sites, warehouses, hospitals and outdoor areas. Static anchor units form the local reference infrastructure with a stated communication range of up to 200 metres, while CargoBeacon specifies location accuracy of approximately five metres and maintenance-free operation for more than five years. The self-healing Wirepas Mesh architecture has been demonstrated in networks containing more than 700,000 devices.

OpenInfrared Point: an ESP32-S3 Universal Remote Hub With BLE, NFC

CNX Software

OpenInfrared Point is a universal remote hub built around the ESP32-S3-WROOM-1 module (dual-core Tensilica LX7 up to 240 MHz) that lets users control compatible devices from a smartphone by scanning a QR code or tapping an NFC tag, eliminating the need for dedicated remote controls. It combines WiFi 4 and Bluetooth LE 5, a built-in multi-directional IR blaster with code learning, and a 3.5mm audio input for streaming audio to a connected phone. The Kickstarter campaign starts at $149.

Cochlear Introduces the New Osia 3 Sound Processor

PR Newswire

Cochlear received FDA clearance for the Osia 3 Sound Processor, the latest version of its bone-conduction hearing system for conductive hearing loss, mixed hearing loss, and single-sided deafness. The company says it's the first active bone conduction device to enable streaming from Apple, Android, and Bluetooth LE Audio-enabled devices, plus Auracast broadcast audio that lets patients share music with a friend or tune into shared audio in venues like cinemas, concert venues, lecture halls, and airports.

Murata Launches UWB Factory Tracking System With Sub-1-Meter Accuracy

IBTimes JP

Murata Manufacturing launched a high-precision indoor positioning system for factories and logistics sites using UWB, designed to track worker movement and the location of goods in factories and logistics warehouses. Murata said the system achieved positioning accuracy with an error of less than 1 meter in evaluations at its own factories, including in indoor environments with many obstacles. This helps maintain stable positioning accuracy even in obstacle-heavy indoor environments.

Aqara U400 Review: the Ultimate Smart Lock for Your Front Door

EFTM

With a digital key in Apple Wallet, the Aqara U400 smart lock lets you just walk up to the door: a green UWB logo lights up when it detects you and the lock opens. The reviewer found this works seamlessly about 70% of the time; the other 30%, they're standing at the door for maybe a second before it lights up.