One of the most common misunderstandings of Bluetooth LE by people that are not familiar with the technology is that Bluetooth LE is a lightweight subset of Bluetooth Classic. This is not true, as Bluetooth Classic and Bluetooth LE are two fundamentally different protocols with different design goals.
Most wireless technologies, such as Wi-Fi and Bluetooth Classic, were designed to satisfy a wide range of use cases; however, the design of Bluetooth LE is a bit different. Originally created by Nokia and known as Wibree, the primary design focus of Bluetooth LE was to create a radio standard with the lowest possible power consumption and optimized for low cost, low complexity, and low bandwidth.
Bluetooth LE specifications were released as part of the Bluetooth 4.0 Core specifications in June of 2010. The Bluetooth Core Specifications are overseen and updated by the...