This is an unedited manuscript accepted for publication and provided as an Article in Press for early access at the author’s request. The article will undergo copyediting, typesetting, and galley proof review before final publication. Please be aware that errors may be identified during production that could affect the content. All legal disclaimers of the journal apply.
Akanksha Moolshankar Jaiswal,
Vivek Shailendra Gupta,
Rashmi Vipat,
- Research Scholar, Department of MCA, Thakur Institute of Management Studies, Career Development & Research (TIMSCDR) Mumbai, Maharashtra, India
- Research Scholar, Department of MCA, Thakur Institute of Management Studies, Career Development & Research (TIMSCDR) Mumbai, Maharashtra, India
- Assistant Professor, Department of MCA, Thakur Institute of Management Studies, Career Development & Research (TIMSCDR) Mumbai, Maharashtra, India
Abstract
In today’s hyper-connected world, modern communication relies heavily on centralised internet infrastructure, making robust offline messaging solutions increasingly essential. A crucial vulnerability is revealed by network failures, natural disasters, and distant region deployments: communication breaks down when internet connectivity does. Due to its low power consumption and almost ubiquitous availability in contemporary smartphones, Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) has become a promising candidate for offline, device-to-device communications. This study presents an empirical analysis of BLE reliability in real-world messaging scenarios through the design and implementation of a secure, hybrid peer-to-peer chat application for Android. The technology, which is protected by end-to-end RSA-2048 encryption, combines Firebase cloud services for online scenarios with BLE for offline communication. The validity of the hybrid architecture as a whole is confirmed by our implementation, which effectively exhibits user authentication with 100% success rate, contact discovery with 95% matching accuracy, and cryptographic operations averaging 45 ms per message. However, extensive empirical testing showed that the BLE communication layer has significant reliability problems. Message transmission over BLE recorded a 0% success rate in all test scenarios, including both controlled and high-interference situations, although device detection achieved a 70% success rate and connection formation reached 60%. The BLE Generic Attribute Profile (GATT) protocol’s basic architectural inadequacies with the requirements of real-time, bidirectional messaging are the cause of this ongoing failure. This study provides a functional prototype, a comparative protocol analysis, developer recommendations, performance benchmarks, and a critical root cause analysis. According to the results, reliable offline communication may require significant protocol-level optimizations or hybrid communication architectures that combine different protocols for data transfer with BLE for discovery.
Keywords: Android Development, RSA Encryption, Peer-to-Peer (P2P), Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE), Empirical Analysis, Reliability, Offline Messaging, GATT Protocol
Akanksha Moolshankar Jaiswal, Vivek Shailendra Gupta, Rashmi Vipat. An Empirical Analysis of Bluetooth Low Energy Reliability Challenges for Offline Messaging Applications. Journal of Mobile Computing, Communications & Mobile Networks. 2026; 13(02):-.
Akanksha Moolshankar Jaiswal, Vivek Shailendra Gupta, Rashmi Vipat. An Empirical Analysis of Bluetooth Low Energy Reliability Challenges for Offline Messaging Applications. Journal of Mobile Computing, Communications & Mobile Networks. 2026; 13(02):-. Available from: https://journals.stmjournals.com/jomccmn/article=2026/view=247728
References
- International Telecommunication Union. Measuring digital development: Facts and figures 2023. Geneva: ITU Publications; 2023.
- Bluetooth SIG. Bluetooth core specification version 5.3 [Internet]. Washington: Bluetooth SIG; 2021 [cited 2023 Aug 20]. Available from: https://www.bluetooth.com/specifications/specs/core-specification-5-3
- Tosi J, Taffoni F, Santacatterina M, Sannino R, Formica D. Performance evaluation of Bluetooth Low Energy: a systematic review. Sensors. 2017;17(12):2898.
- Johnson D, Maltz D. Dynamic source routing in ad hoc wireless networks. In: Imielinski T, Korth H, editors. Mobile computing. New York: Springer; 1996. p. 153-81.
- Burleigh S, Hooke A, Torgerson L, Fall K, Cerf V, Durst B, et al. Delay-tolerant networking: an approach to interplanetary Internet. IEEE Commun Mag. 2003;41(6):128-36.
- Briar Project. Briar: Secure messaging, anywhere [Internet]. 2023 [cited 2023 Aug 15]. Available from: https://briarproject.org/
- Purohit KC, Li S, Sun Z. FireChat: A lightweight mesh networking application. In: Proceedings of the IEEE INFOCOM 2015 Workshop; 2015 Apr; Hong Kong. Piscataway (NJ): IEEE; 2015.
- Bridgefy Inc. Bridgefy: Offline messaging SDK [Internet]. 2023 [cited 2023 Aug 20]. Available from: https://bridgefy.me/
- Gomez C, Oller J, Paradells J. Overview and evaluation of Bluetooth Low Energy: an emerging low-power wireless technology. Sensors. 2012;12(9):11734-53.
- Siekkinen M, Hoikkanen MA, Nurminen JK. How low energy is Bluetooth Low Energy? Comparative measurements with ZigBee/802.15.4. In: Proceedings of the IEEE Wireless Communications and Networking Conference Workshops (WCNCW); 2012; Paris, France. Piscataway (NJ): IEEE; 2012. p. 232-7.
- Leoni JL, Stacchio L, Valenti ARL. Experimental characterization of BLE PHY modes and their impact on power consumption and packet error rate. IEEE Internet Things J. 2021;8(10):8009-21.
- Tai TV, Kim KS, Lee S. Performance analysis of Bluetooth Low Energy for high-density IoT networks. In: Proceedings of the International Conference on Information and Communication Technology (ICICT); 2020. Piscataway (NJ): IEEE; 2020. p. 1-4.
- Unger N, Dechand S, Bonneau J, Fahl S, Perl H, Goldberg I, et al. SoK: Secure messaging. In: Proceedings of the IEEE Symposium on Security and Privacy; 2015 May; San Jose, CA. Piscataway (NJ): IEEE; 2015. p. 232-49.
- Pang B, T’Jonck K, Claeys T, Pissoort D, Hallez H, Boydens J. Bluetooth Low Energy interference awareness scheme and improved channel selection algorithm for connection robustness. Sensors. 2021;21(7):2257.
- Gomez C, Demirkol I, Paradells J. Performance evaluation of Bluetooth Low Energy in dense environments: challenges and opportunities. IEEE Internet Things J. 2021;8(15):12089-102.
- Caesar M, Pawelke T, Steffan J, Terhorst G. A survey on Bluetooth Low Energy security and privacy. Comput Netw. 2022;205:108712.

Journal of Mobile Computing, Communications & Mobile Networks
| Volume | 13 |
| 02 | |
| Received | 10/03/2026 |
| Accepted | 20/06/2026 |
| Published | 26/06/2026 |
| Publication Time | 108 Days |
Login
PlumX Metrics