Article Details
  • Published Online:
    November  2025
  • Product Name:
    The IUP Journal of Telecommunications
  • Product Type:
    Article
  • Product Code:
    IJCT021125
  • DOI:
    10.71329/IUPJTC/2025.17.4.32-53
  • Author Name:
    Nikheel Vishwas Savant
  • Availability:
    YES
  • Subject/Domain:
    Engineering
  • Download Format:
    PDF
  • Pages:
    32-53
Vol. 17, Issue 4, October-December 2025
Secure and Seamless Handover Mechanisms Between Bluetooth and Wi-Fi in IoT Mesh Networks
Abstract

The proliferation of dual-radio IoT devices combining Bluetooth low energy (BLE) and Wi-Fi enables flexible tradeoffs between power efficiency and data throughput. However, enabling secure and seamless handover between these technologies remains a formidable challenge— particularly within decentralized mesh networks characterized by dynamic topologies and multi-hop communication. Existing solutions either rely on hard handovers with significant latency and session disruption or are tightly coupled to proprietary ecosystems, limiting generalizability and security. The paper introduces a lightweight, protocol-agnostic handover framework that integrates a session abstraction layer (SAL) and an edge node authentication server (ENAS), enabling secure, low-latency transitions between BLE and Wi-Fi in decentralized Internet of Things (IoT) mesh networks. The proposed framework is fully implemented on embedded hardware using commercially available dual-radio microcontrollers (ESP32-C6) and validated under live BLE–Wi-Fi mesh conditions. The experimental results demonstrate a 71% reduction in handover latency, a 91% improvement in packet delivery, and full authentication reliability—outperforming traditional hard handover approaches. These findings contribute a scalable and secure method for maintaining connectivity across heterogeneous wireless protocols, opening pathways for resilient, vendor-neutral IoT deployments in healthcare, smart infrastructure, and industrial systems.

Introduction

Internet of Things (IoT) has rapidly evolved into a heterogeneous ecosystem comprising billions of devices with varied performance, power, and communication requirements (Sigg et al., 2023).