Easy and safe pairing for bluetooth smart
Marcel Louis Meli, Olivier Rion, Lukas Widmer · Zürcher Hochschule für Angewandte Wissenschaften digital collection (Zurich University of Applied Sciences) · 2016
The configuration of Bluetooth Smart devices in a secure way is a challenging task. Even more so for early versions of this wireless protocol. The use of NFC can facilitate the task, but requires devices and phones that support the NFC standard. This adds costs, both to the smartphone and to the Bluetooth Smart device. Additionally, many smartphones on the market do not (openly) implement NFC. This further limits the number of users that can use that short range RFID standard to configure wireless systems. In this work, we address these issues. We suggest that easy configuration with nearly all smartphones is possible, by using the screen of smartphones to generate an optical code. That signal is detected using a low cost photosensitive element on the side of the Bluetooth Smart device. The information thus generated can be used to generate a key that helps secure the wireless communication between the 2 parties.