BLE or classic

[zdravko]

Is BLE the same thing as classic Bluetooth in an API sense?

[Fredrik]

No, it is quite different.

You scan for devices in a similar manner, but with BLE you can get extra advertising data. (It is this advertising data that is used to create the Beacon protocols.)

You can pair and connect to devices in a similar manner, but once connected things become different. Classic Bluetooth uses a plain serial protocol (reading and writing a byte-stream), but BLE uses something called GATT, with a tree of Services, Characteristics and Descriptors. On Characteristics and Descriptors you can do reading and writing. On Characteristics you can get Notifications, which is the remote device sending you updated values whenever the Characteristic changes.

Does this answer your question?

[zdravko]

Thanks.
Don't classic Bluetooth devices also use GATT services and characteristics?

[Fredrik]

They do not. Classic Bluetooth uses a number of Profiles on top of the "RFCOMM" serial protocol.

[zdravko]

Ok, I see. This integration would be really hard, if possible at all.
Thanks.

[arvindpdmn]

I am using HC-05 which BT 2.0. Does this mean that it is not supported by EvoThings? If I have to write code to support this, where should I start? Thx