Going for BLE only in the 121GW meter was a big mistake. We thought we could just implement a simple serial protocol and that would be it, but BLE doesn't properly support serial interfaces like the full bluetooth stack does. It was a massive multi-month effort by David2 to get it all working as seamlessly as it does, and he's a gun programmer (although had no experience in BLE). Expensive mistake.
(BTW, same thing has happened again with USB-PB on the uSupply, it makes the BLE problem look like a cake-walk)
Actually, I think it was a good choice for a device like this, BLE and specifically that Nordic nRF52 chip series are extremely low power (like 10mA while transmitting and down to single digit uA when sleeping).
I have used a nRF52832 recently for a project to be used with a PC, where BLE support is a bit more hit&miss than on mobile - and no big issues. However, I did implement a custom HID (HID over GATT) device instead - that works in Windows 10, Linux (and likely Mac too but I didn't test) and all mobile hw out of the box. I have used the excellent free HIDAPI library to write a small client to read the data from my vendor-specific report but you could use e.g. a gamepad or something else standard too. Not as simple as opening a terminal emulator to read the data but not that much more complicated neither.
The Nordic SDK has an example of a HID mouse, with a bit of research and hacking of descriptors you can make a custom device.
BLE doesn't have the standard profiles like the classic Bluetooth had but the fact that you don't need to "pair" (well, bond in the BLE terminology), that you can have multiple devices bonded and connected (!) (e.g. your phone AND the PC at the same time), much lower power consumption are more than enough to balance that out.
The regular serial device profile (SPP) in Bluetooth Classic is neat but compared to the simplicity of GATT and the need to either use preprogrammed modules or to buy expensive dev kits is a major downside, IMO.
The nRF52 series lets you do all of this stuff in a single cheap module, with regular ARM dev tools (no proprietary stuff needed, only a binary blob you flash if you need BLE) and supports all sorts of protocols - not only BLE but also Shockburst (used by the popular nRF24L01+), Zigbee and ANT (if you are into fitness stuff). And FCC certified modules are cheap (like $2-5, in singles) if you don't want to implement the SoC on the board yourself.