Elixir Wizards Blue Heron: Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) for Elixir & Nerves with Connor Rigby
Jun 5, 2025
Connor Rigby, the creator of Blue Heron for Elixir, dives into the intricacies of Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) integration for embedded systems. He discusses the innovative pure Elixir implementation that avoids C dependencies, making it ideal for Nerves projects. Connor shares his experiences with hardware quirks and the importance of understanding official Bluetooth specs. Plus, he highlights the flexibility of Blue Heron for both IoT applications and desktop use, along with tips for developing practical BLE prototypes using tools like Nerves LiveBook.
AI Snips
Chapters
Books
Transcript
Episode notes
Blue Heron Started For SmartRent Devices
- Connor built Blue Heron originally to support SmartRent's smart thermostats and hubs that use BLE for device communication.
- He implemented BLE in Elixir to connect Nerves devices to phones and sensors without C ports.
Elixir Fits BLE Packet Work
- BLE is highly specified and maps well to Elixir's binary pattern matching and OTP concurrency.
- Connor says Elixir makes packet parsing and message handling much easier than lower-level languages.
Nerves Needs Linux And Power Headroom
- Nerves requires a Linux base and therefore imposes a higher minimum hardware cost than tiny battery sensors.
- Connor warns that OTP's always-on paradigm doesn't suit ultra-low-power devices.
