September 22, 2025
Retail is a rapidly evolving space, and the technology driving much of that innovation is to be found in electronic shelf labels (ESL), while ESL tech is growing into other markets and even more sophisticated applications. Some industry insiders say that ESL could be growing even faster if it wasn’t being hampered by challenges like vendor lock-in and a lack of standardization.
To resolve these roadblocks, the Bluetooth 5.4 specification is leveraging “Periodic Advertising with Responses” (PAwR) and the new ESL profile, both developed by Bluetooth SIG. Bluetooth 5.4 is the newest version of Bluetooth technology, released by Bluetooth SIG in February 2023. It includes PAwR and Encrypted Advertising (EAD) features that together enable secure, bi-directional communication between a wireless access point (AP) and thousands of very-low-power end nodes with low energy and long range to, among other features, allow thousands of labels to be updated and synchronized remotely and securely. EAD provides a standardized approach to the secure broadcasting of data in advertising packets. EAD data can be received by any ESL tag but can only be decrypted and authenticated by tags that have previously shared the session key. This allows for the encryption of data shared over PAwR.
The ESL market needs these two features to drive future growth and allow the use of the current standard-based Bluetooth spec. Meanwhile, reliability can be improved through Link Layer privacy.
Application
The applications for ESL are as wide as the opportunities to communicate with consumers and users in a dynamic, changeable environment.
Of course, retail is the obvious use, with shelf tags for changing prices and descriptions based upon available discounts, inventory, and supply chain shifts, market dynamics, and many other factors. Outside of retail, warehouse, storage, shipping, logistics, and other supply chain sectors, all can use ESL for better management and distribution, to find efficiencies, and avoid losses, but only if the ESL system being deployed is energy efficient, dynamically updatable over the air, and secure in a trusted and cryptographically sophisticated environment. As we’ve discussed, PAwR and EAD are the most effective solutions to these challenges.
AIROC Bluetooth LE CYW20829
Infineon’s high-performance AIROC Bluetooth LE CYW20829 is poised to help meet the demand for Bluetooth 5.4, in ESL and other applications, while offering reliability, security, and energy efficiency.
AIROC is designed to offer energy-efficient, bi-directional communication with CYW20829 and PAwR, Infineon says, in order to enable ESL tags to receive data from a periodic advertiser to respond to the transmitter of the periodic advertiser, and real-time monitoring of sensor data, or triggering specific actions based on certain conditions, using Bluetooth 5.4.
Tags can be allocated to up to 128 different groups, with a maximum of 255 tags per group. That kind of variety and flexibility is only available through this bi-directional communication in a large-scale one-to-many or star topology.
AIROC CYW20829 supports PAwR, EAD, and LE GATT security level characteristics, and is also ideally suited to ESL battery-powered use cases, according to Infineon. It has been designed with low active and sleep currents while offering robust RF with a +10 dBm output power. In addition, it enables Bluetooth LE long-range in hundreds of meters for industrial use cases like warehousing, storage, and supply chain logistics.
The benefits are easy to see. Without reliable connectivity, any ESL system is no better than paper tags. Standardizing on the newest Bluetooth 5.4 spec is, as we’ve shown, integral to future-proofing ESL with PAwR and EAD features.
Any enterprise carrying inventory or looking for ways to dynamically communicate with a passive user should be thinking about ESL and Infineon’s AIROC CYW20829.
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Ken Briodagh is a writer and editor with two decades of experience under his belt. He is in love with technology and if he had his druthers, he would beta test everything from shoe phones to flying cars. In previous lives, he’s been a short order cook, telemarketer, medical supply technician, mover of the bodies at a funeral home, pirate, poet, partial alliterist, parent, partner and pretender to various thrones. Most of his exploits are either exaggerated or blatantly false.