Cassia Networks has announced a partnership with GE Digital, targeting Industrial IoT (IIoT) applications with its long-range Bluetooth routers – which can achieve ranges of over 300-meters. With GE as a potential sales channel into IIoT customers, Cassia is pushing its routers as an affordable answer to the challenge of connecting devices to the IoT. CEO Felix Zhao argues that Bluetooth is really well-suited to these sorts of deployments, thanks to its low-cost hardware and two-year battery life. Of course, stock Bluetooth has limitations, but this is where Cassia comes in – with its specialized gateway antenna and noise-filtering software package. Essentially, Cassia’s routers can transmit power at much higher levels than the edge-devices can, meaning that the routers can…