GL.inet's GL-S10 Offers an Easy Way to Turn Bluetooth LE Data Into MQTT Messages

Powered by an ESP32, this compact router aims to make it easy to connect Bluetooth LE Beacons to an MQTT server of your choice.

Communications specialist GL.inet has launched a compact router designed to ease development of wireless sensor systems, offering a way to receive data over Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) and send them out over the network as MQTT messages.

"GL-S10 is an IoT gateway that supports BLE and Wi-Fi protocols, providing a simple and cost-efficient solution for transmitting BLE data to a cloud server," GL.inet writes of its product. "BLE supports GAP and GATT specifications and can be used as either Master-mode or Slave-mode to connect and exchange data with other Bluetooth devices. Besides, it can use Wi-Fi as a station to connect to a parent router, and it can also connect to the Internet through a WAN port."

The compact router, brought to our attention by CNX Software, is built around an Espressif ESP32-D0WD system-on-chip with 8MB of pseudo-static RAM (PSRAM) and 4MB of flash storage. This is used to run an MQTT client, which receives data from BLE devices and forwards them as MQTT messages to any compatible server.

The Bluetooth 4.2 LE radio is claimed to be good to around 260 feet for line-of-sight communication to BLE beacons and other devices, while there's a 10/100 Ethernet port with Power-over-Ethernet (PoE) support and 2.4GHz 802.11/b/g/n Wi-Fi with an external dipole antenna.

More details on the router are available on the GL.inet website, where it sells for $24.90 β€” or $29.90 with a bundled BLE Beacon, designed for asset management and indoor positioning.

Gareth Halfacree
Freelance journalist, technical author, hacker, tinkerer, erstwhile sysadmin. For hire: freelance@halfacree.co.uk.
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