Good Arduino Board with BLE?

Hello,

Preface: I'm still pretty much an Arduino newbie, but I'm a software engineer so the programming side isn't a problem for me. I'm interested in building my second prototype for a wearable device that would pair with a phone via BLE. My first prototype is too big to be wearable so with my second prototype I'd like to ask for some guidance on the following:

  1. An arduino board with built-in BLE. This is the closest thing I could find Beetle BLE Board. Essentially all I need to do at least for my prototype is for the wearable device to send to the phone the integer values that a moisture sensor detects. I was able to see these values already via my first prototype while connecting the device to a bluetooth terminal app on my smart phone. Does anyone know of boards similar to this one that will allow me to do this? I'm a little hesitant on the beetle due to the bad reviews. Ideally I should be able to connect it to my laptop via mini-usb as well.

  2. It should be able to be powered via a coin-cell battery. I'd like the prototype to be about the size of a quarter or bottle cap and no larger. What additional hardware would I need to accomplish this?

  3. Lastly, I need to be able to sense moisture with the device. In my first prototype I simply wired two copper strips to the board that when moisture bridged the gap between the two copper strips, the circuit would be closed, and the prototype would send that integer value across the serial connection. I think I should be able to reproduce this with any board. I'm just rusty on the details as I've come back to this project after a long hiatus from it.

Thanks for reading and any and all advice is appreciated!

  1. It should be able to be powered via a coin-cell battery. I'd like the prototype to be about the size of a quarter or bottle cap and no larger. What additional hardware would I need to accomplish this?

Red Bear sells tiny BLE boards. Arduino support exists but if the goal is long life from a coin cell battery, you may have to use the Nordic SDK for low level control of the power management.

Search for "red bear nano v2".

Adafruit has the "Feather" series, which includes several BTLE-enabled boards Adafruit Feather 32u4 Bluefruit LE : ID 2829 : $29.95 : Adafruit Industries, Unique & fun DIY electronics and kits

"Size of a quarter" is probably pretty tough to achieve without building your own hardware; the "wearable" Arduino-like devices I've seen have all be semi-enlarged to allow easy connection to sensors, switches, etc...