Question about support for Bluetooth classic + BLE

[patrikdj]

Hello Evothings team,

I am planning to develop a cross platform iOS + Android mobile app where a smart phone should connect wirelessly using Bluetooth to a remote device which may be an setup based on an Arduino (or perhaps Raspberry Pi) and I was first thinking to use BLE only.

However, since users does not all have BLE support in their Android smart phone devices today, I was actually instead thinking to support such devices by Bluetooth classic instead (while support of iOS devices are by BLE).

Furthermore for Android (4.3 and 4.4) my understanding is that BLE support is a bit limited (only BLE central role is supported, not peripheral role) and I heard that BLE in Android is still not fully mature.

Now, I see that you have many great examples (!) for BLE and my question is if you also support Bluetooth classic already, or if this is something you have considered to add in the near future?

Today I have not yet figured out which Bluetooth classic profile would be best for my mobile app, but it seems like Serial Port Profile (SPP) may be a good choice. In addition I heard of something called ”unsecureRFcomm” in Android which may be used for applications where pairing/bonding is not needed (I think some Bluetooth chat applications use this, not sure).

Thanks in advance.

[micke]

Hi Patrik,

Seems like this is the most popular Cordova Bluetooth plugin out there:

https://github.com/don/BluetoothSerial

Built an experimental version of EvothingsClient for Android with this plugin included. You can get it here:

http://evomedia.evothings.com/download/ ... _debug.apk

Note that you will probably have to uninstall your current version of EvothingsClient, before installing this version. Since this is an unsigned debug version, you will get a certificate mismatch if the previous version is installed.

Let me know how it goes!

Best, Micke

[patrikdj]

Hi Micke!

Thanks a lot, it seems from the documentation that the Bluetooth plugin should be perfectly suited for my application.

Let me try out the new and experimental version of Evothings Client and come back later with status.

BR, Patrik

[micke]

Did you have any time to try out the Bluetooth Classic plugin for Android?
Best regards, Mikael

[Nicu]

Hi,
Has this example been integrated into the studio examples yet?
Is it one of the other examples ported to BT Classic? It may have more setup details.
I can try this out at this time - is the linked APK the latest to use?
Thanks,
Nic

[Fredrik]

The APK linked in the earlier post is quite old by now. The most recent stable Client can always be found on the Android app store, or on our download page.

[Nicu]

Is Bluetooth classic supported "out of the box" now? It was in an experimental version!

[Fredrik]

Yes, the BluetoothSerial plugin is included in the published Client.

[Nicu]

Cool thanks

[arvindpdmn]

I have installed EvoThings Viewer V1.1.0. But it cannot detect classic devices nearby. Could it be that I have to install the client via apk file? thx