Picture Gallery: Discover Blue showcases intelligent Bluetooth devices

Organised by the Bluetooth SIG, the event was showcasing the latest intelligent and low-energy enabled Bluetooth devices (see below for full product details).

Take, for example, a UK design and manufacturing success story, the ICON smart bike light from See Sense, which monitors a cyclist’s environment. Designed and manufactured in Northern Ireland, to be precise, after the company founder wanted to build the perfect bike light for himself, for both day and night visibility.

By connecting your light to your smartphone it enables features such as theft alerts and crash detection alerts for calling for help.

Or check out the innovative system from Sensible Object, a startup based at Makerversity, that combines self-built avatars and gaming via Bluetooth comms.

Using special building blogs you construct your own fantasy animal like character, communicate it to your tablet via the special docking bay, and you can take part in the gaming adventure with your own character. They raised £170K on KickStarter, against a 150K target, and describe the game Fabulous Beasts as “a new kind of game that blends tabletop dexterity with digital strategy in a unique connected experience.”

Not forgetting the likes of a perfect replica of Star Trek communicator, a Bluetooth smart lock from SwissLock, a fitbit for your pet from PitPatPet or adaptive lighting systems from Silvair…

Check out the mini picture gallery below:

“A fantastic opportunity to get an exclusive sneak-peak at the cutting-edge IoT devices of today, as well as the upcoming technologies and devices that will enhance consumers’ lives in the near future,” was the promise of the event.

Exhibitors included:

• BBC micro:bit– Powered by Bluetooth: Dr. Joe Finney of Lancaster University is the brains behind, and primary developer of, the micro:bit runtime, a lightweight operating system for the device and the place where the micro:bit custom Bluetooth profile is implemented. Joe will be demonstrating a variety of Bluetooth applications made possible by the popular educational device.

• Ubudu– World’s first beacon mesh:  Apple’s iBeacons are so last year. Mesh beacons enable a world of new consumer experiences which wouldn’t be otherwise possible with conventional beacons. Mesh beacons, which utilise capabilities in Bluetooth 4.2, turn the current generation of location-broadcasting beacons into a two-way, Net-connected network. This means, for instance, that a customer standing in an aisle could send a very brief message via her smartphone app to the store, asking for assistance.

• The Wand Company– Star Trek Communicator:  Beam Us Up, Scotty! 50 years after it first appeared on the TV show, Star Trek fans can finally own a real working Communicator that, thanks to Bluetooth technology, functions just like the then-fictional device seen on TV.

• See.Sense– Intelligent Bike Light: ICON is the smartest bike light in the history of bike lights. It turns a typical bike into an intelligent bike – monitoring the environment, alerting for help in the event of a crash, and is specifically designed for both day and night visibility.

• Silvair– Smart adaptive lighting systems: Powered by a robust Bluetooth mesh network, Silvair is an end-to-end smart lighting platform enabling manufacturers to provide an enhanced lighting experience to their customers.

• Pitpatpet– Keeping dogs healthy: The Fitbit for your dog. With PitPat you can track your dog’s activities and fitness and discover what they’ve done while you’ve been apart.

• Swissprime Technologies– My Lock: My Lock is an electronic locking solution for innumerable application such as doors, furniture and lockers, which allows its users to share and revoke lock keys over the air by simply making use of Bluetooth.

• Sensible Objects– Battling Beasts with Bluetooth Board Games: For lovers of games like Jenga, there’s a new kid on the block, and he’s sporting Bluetooth technology. Sensible Objects bring its tablet-based puzzle game made real, where small animal figures are scanned into the game via a base unit and then balanced precariously on top of each other.

See also: Bluetooth 5 standard promises to quadruple range, doubles speed