WiFi Beacon Stuffing vs. BLE Connectionless Mode for Ephemeral Interactions in Smart Environments

In an era where many digital interactions are often short-lived and instantaneous, connectionless communication technologies have been emerging as pivotal enablers of such interactions. Unlike their connection-oriented counterparts, these technologies facilitate seamless, on-demand exchanges without the need for establishing persistent connections. Relying on technologies that are abundant and easily accessible for the end users contributes to the ubiquitous spread of connectionless communication. WiFi and BLE are two popular examples of such technologies as they are found now on all user devices. This paper explores their potential in realizing connectionless communication scenarios by experimentally comparing their usages for several use-cases in different application domains. Such a comparison is imperative to making an informed decision on which technology to use for a given application. We establish this comparison on ESP32 in terms of power consumption, delivery rate and distance.