We’re excited to announce the release of BleuIO firmware v2.8.0.5. This release focuses on making GATT service and characteristic discovery more reliable, particularly when working with complex Bluetooth Low Energy peripheral devices that expose very large GATT databases.

Firmware v2.8.0.5 introduces important stability improvements, increases the number of characteristics BleuIO can handle within a service, and optimizes how discovered GATT data is processed and returned.

We recommend that all BleuIO users update to the latest firmware.

What’s New in Firmware v2.8.0.5

Improved Discovery Stability

One of the main improvements in this release addresses an issue that could cause BleuIO to unexpectedly reset while performing service and characteristic discovery on peripheral devices with exceptionally large GATT databases.

With firmware v2.8.0.5, the discovery process has been redesigned to handle these large and complex profiles much more efficiently. This means more reliable discovery when connecting BleuIO to BLE devices that expose many services, characteristics, values, and descriptors.

Support for Larger GATT Profiles

We have also increased BleuIO’s internal profile capacity.

BleuIO can now comfortably support up to 165 characteristics within an individual service, allowing it to work with significantly larger peripheral profiles without running out of memory. This is especially useful when developing or debugging applications that interact with feature-rich BLE devices containing extensive GATT structures.

A New Streaming Discovery Architecture

Behind these improvements is an important change to the way BleuIO processes GATT discovery data.

Previous firmware versions used a hierarchical caching model that temporarily stored discovered GATT information in RAM before presenting the results. With v2.8.0.5, BleuIO now uses a sequential streaming discovery model. Instead of building a large representation of the peripheral’s GATT database in memory, BleuIO processes metadata dynamically and sends discovered information to the USB interface as it becomes available.

This significantly reduces memory usage and improves connection stability when discovering large peripheral profiles.

AT Commands Affected

The new streaming architecture applies to the following GATT discovery commands:

• AT+GETSERVICES — Performs the full sequential GATT discovery stream.
• AT+GETSERVICESONLY — Performs a high-level service discovery pass only.
• AT+GETSERVICEDETAILS — Performs a targeted discovery of an individual service.

If your application uses any of these commands, there is one small output-order change to be aware of.

Changes to GATT Output Order

With the new streaming discovery architecture, discovered GATT attributes are now sent to the USB interface immediately as they are parsed from the connected peripheral device. This allows BleuIO to process discovery data more efficiently without keeping the entire GATT structure in memory.

For each service block, BleuIO will first output the Service row, followed by all of its Characteristics and Characteristic Values. Once those have been processed, all Descriptors associated with that service range, including descriptors such as 0x2902 CCCDs, will be output.

As a result of this optimization, descriptor entries are now grouped together at the end of their respective service block. In previous firmware versions, descriptors could appear interleaved directly after their parent characteristic value handle. The underlying GATT information remains the same; only the order in which descriptor handles are presented has changed.

Existing parsers should remain compatible with this update. All JSON formatting fields, including handle, type, uuid, prop, and propFormat, remain unchanged in verbose mode, and the standard text mode output strings also remain identical to previous versions. Applications that rely on the exact position of descriptor entries within a service block may need to account for the updated output order.

How to Update Your BleuIO

There are two ways to update your BleuIO to firmware v2.8.0.5.

Option 1: Download and Install the Latest Firmware

You can download the latest BleuIO firmware and follow the firmware update instructions in our official documentation:

Download the latest BleuIO firmware and view the update guide

Option 2: Update Using the BleuIO Web App

You can also update your BleuIO directly through the BleuIO web application:

Update BleuIO using the web app

Update your BleuIO and start using firmware v2.8.0.5 today.