Operating system: MacOS
Just for some context on what I am trying to do, I have an Ikea standing desk which has bluetooth. I am able to control the desk with a built in app. I want to create a server running on a raspberry pi that connects to desk and controls it, I then want to create an Alexa skill which will control the desk by calling the server endpoints.
What's the best language/library you would suggest I use? Ideally something that would run on MacOS and Ubuntu.
I don't know anything about BLE yet which is why it is hard for me to find a good answer. If you have resources, books or tutorials that will help me get running with BLE please recommend them.
My use case:
Get desk to go up
Get desk to go down
Get current position of desk
If you want to write one app that works for both MacOS and Ubuntu then as ukBaz said, python and Bleak are your best options. If you want to use the native way of writing BLE apps for each OS, then you can use CoreBluetooth on MacOS and BlueZ on Ubuntu. The advantage of the former is that you can get an application up and running quickly, and the advantage of the latter is that you will find a lot more resources and advanced functionality.
Below are some resources that can help you in your development:-
Theoretical Bluetooth:
Bluetooth Low Energy: A Primer
Getting Started with Bluetooth Low Energy
Ellisys Bluetooth Series
CoreBluetooth
Getting Started with CoreBluetooth
Ultimate Guide to Apple's CoreBluetooth
iOS App Full Example
BlueZ
Configuring Bluetooth devices with bluetoothctl
Ubuntu: Accessing GATT services
Python
Ikea IDÅSEN desk API and CLI
Idasen controller example
Using Python for Bluetooth
Related
Apologies for asking a time dependant question, but does anyone know when Microsoft are going to sort out there drivers for the Raspberry Pi 3's on-board Bluetooth chip?
Currently the console Device Settings just display the following exception error code relating to a fault with the OS files:
The device is not ready for use. (Excep_FromHResult 0x800710DF)
Or does anyone know of a workaround to this problem?... Short of developing your own drivers and creating a custom OS image for the board.
Many thanks for your help.
Raspberry Pi 3 onboard Bluetooth support is in a future release of Windows IoT Core Insider Preview, per the page it should come soon, so please be patient.
The workaround is to use a compatible USB Bluetooth dongle, check out here to find the list.
If you want to develop your own driver and create a custom image for hobby or fun, you can find very good code samples in https://github.com/ms-iot/bsp/tree/master/drivers, and follow https://msdn.microsoft.com/windows/hardware/commercialize/manufacture/iot/iot-core-manufacturing-guide
to create custom windows IoT core image.
Update!!!
Onboard Bluetooth driver seems to be included in the latest preview build version 14376. I did not test it thoroughly but per the snapshots below, it looks very promising.
I have a device with a few custom GATT services, and I would like to write a Linux program to interact with it. After some searching I found out that Linux is using BlueZ to handle the Bluetooth LE protocol. I'm using Ubuntu 15.10 with BlueZ 5.35, but I cannot figure out how use this BlueZ from a user-space program. I cannot find an API documentation anywhere, no tutorials, examples, nothing. Is it even possible to use this BlueZ stack to do anything other than just connecting to Bluetooth devices with default services? And if so, where is the documentation? (Preferably C/C++ API but at this point anything goes)
Have a look at attrib/gatttool.c in the bluez sources [1]. Gatttool is a command line utility for connecting to BTLE devices using the C "API". The GATT interface is not exposed in libbluetooth though.
A newer alternative to gatttool and thus another example to learn
from is the btgatt-client, which you can find in
tools/btgatt-client.c (to enable compilation configure bluez with
--enable-experimental).
Besides the C interface bluez integrated a DBUS interface.
bluetoothctl is an example tool using the DBUS interface. The code of
bluetoothctl can be found in client/ [2].
Another example program using the C interface of bluez is the Anki
Drive SDK [3]. It packaged the bluez GATT C interface in its own
library libbzle [4]. When using the C interface you have to connect a
socket when establishing a BTLE connection. The gatttool does this
via the GATT interface, which in turn uses glib iirc. But you can
also do this using syscalls (socket, connect, ...) as explained e.g.
here [5]. This document also explains:
Unfortunately, as of now there is no official API reference to refer to, so more curious readers are advised to download and examine the BlueZ source code.
Gilbert Brault also extracted the GATT interface from bluez [6] and links to a rudimentary doxygen documentation of the GATT interface [7] with the following disclaimer:
This is a work in progress with the intent of documenting all important functions and data structures
Also Szymon Janc gave a nice overview in his talk "Bluetooth on Modern Linux" at the Embedded Linux Conference 2016 [8]. Starting at 42:00 he talks about the unexposed C interface. But in general he seems to recommend the DBUS API (see "Tips" slide at 45:30). Some DBUS documentation can be found in doc/gatt-api.txt [9] and Python examples using the DBUS interface can be found in test/.
Hope this helps.
[1] http://git.kernel.org/cgit/bluetooth/bluez.git/tree/attrib/gatttool.c
[2] http://git.kernel.org/cgit/bluetooth/bluez.git/tree/client/
[3] https://github.com/anki/drive-sdk/
[4] https://github.com/anki/drive-sdk/tree/master/deps/bzle/
[5] https://people.csail.mit.edu/albert/bluez-intro/c404.html
[6] https://github.com/gbrault/gattclient
[7] http://gbrault.github.io/gattclient/index.html
[8] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tclS9arLFzk
[9] http://git.kernel.org/cgit/bluetooth/bluez.git/tree/doc/gatt-api.txt
I feel your pain. I needed to add user input from a custom BLE peripheral, a simple remote pushbutton, to an embedded program running under Linux (Stretch) on a Raspberry Pi. I was stunned by the needless complexity and Spartan (not a compliment) documentation of the BlueZ API. All the BlueZ “examples” are written from the perspective that Bluetooth is the center of the universe and the user wants to support every Bluetooth device ever invented. In my case I knew exactly the device, service, and GATT characteristics I needed to interact with, and I wanted a minimum overhead task that would do its thing in a low priority thread.
It turns out a BLE central client is pretty straightforward using BlueZ, but it was an arduous road starting with the source for the BlueZ utility bluetoothctl in release 5.49. I accomplished my needs using only three unmodified source files from the BlueZ distribution and excerpts from an additional three source files. Since the BlueZ source is inextricably dependent on D-Bus and the Gnome GLib main loop, I grudgingly included them.
Following OlivierM's generous lead, and in hopes that my embarrassingly massive investment in time saves someone else a month of their life, I have posted my example Bluetooth BLE client on GitHub: https://github.com/jjjsmit/BluetoothBLEClient
It would arguably be simpler and quicker to write a shell script on Linux to do what you need to do. The BlueZ commands are relatively simple and straightforward, and there are many tutorials and questions on how to use it.
Tutorials:-
http://www.jaredwolff.com/blog/get-started-with-bluetooth-low-energy/
https://learn.adafruit.com/reverse-engineering-a-bluetooth-low-energy-light-bulb/control-with-bluez
https://lilyhack.wordpress.com/2014/02/03/ble-read-write-arduino-raspberry-pi/
http://joost.damad.be/2013/08/experiments-with-bluetooth-low-energy.html
Questions:-
Using Bluetooth low energy in linux command line
Bluetooth Low Energy: listening for notifications/indications in linux
How can I connect to the FitBit Zip over Bluetooth 4.0 LE on Linux with bluez?
Once you are more familiar with using the commands manually you can then write a minimal shell script so that this is automated for you.
I had a similar issue which is to interact with a BLE device with a GATT C/C++ API. I have realized there was no such API existing.
The way I fixed my issue was to write my own GATT library. I have pushed the code on Github: https://github.com/labapart/gattlib
I use this library in my own BLE project and it fulfils my needs. I created few examples https://github.com/labapart/gattlib/tree/master/examples that use the library to encourage people to use it and have better feedback.
I recently found out that Qt has Bluetooth Low Energy support as host since Qt 5.7. Qt Bluetooth LE. It is available under LGPLv3 or commercial license, and exposes a C++ API.
I need some guidance. In a nutshell, I need to be able to configure and control a device with the smart phone app over BLE.
For example, change IP address of my Raspberry Pi. To make that happen, I need 2 things.
Simple Android/iOS app that takes IP address parameters as an input, and then communicates over Bluetooth to the RPi. Note that the device needs to be discovered and connected from within the app (without going to "Settings" and pairing).
Build some server process on the Raspberry Pi that listens to USB Bluetooth dongle, receives the command with parameters and acts accordingly.
So I need help building the BLE portion of this project.
I have several years of smartphone app development experience, and 10+ years of Linux system programming. In other words, building a simple Cordova app, as well as Linux process that changes IP address is really not an issue.
However, I am totally new to Bluetooth. Can you point me to the right direction? I am sure this problem has already been solved few thousand times. Is there a tutorial? Or maybe a skeleton code I use as a starting point? Also, any recommendation for BLE USB dongle?
Thanks a lot!
I think it will be harder to find a better guide to implement low energy technology on the RaspberryPi than this one :
https://learn.adafruit.com/downloads/pdf/pibeacon-ibeacon-with-a-raspberry-pi.pdf
After this , you can download a random app on the Playstore/Appstore and check that your RaspberryPi is actually acting as a BLE device.
Finally you can start creating your own app using several available BLE plugins like :
https://github.com/randdusing/BluetoothLE
https://github.com/don/cordova-plugin-ble-central
For my project I have an Android phone and an Arduino device that communicate via Bluetooth. I was wondering if anyone knows any software tools I could use to monitor a bluetooth communications between two devices. Something like a packet eavesdropping. Preferably for Linux.
Take a look at ubertooth one. In the linked webpage there are instructions on how to build the dongle, as well as links to shops selling assembled dongles may be bought. Ubertooth one should work well with Kismet, and thus in Linux, by using a BT plugin (disclaimer: I have no personal experience on this).
Sounds like you are after a Bluetooth sniffer.
Bad news: They are almost exclusively Windows OS based and cost mega-$.
http://www.fte.com/products/bluetooth.aspx
If you were using BlueZ for one side of the communication you could use the BlueZ HCIDUMP app and Wireshark.
I don't think anyone has made a Linuz/Bluez Sniffer - could be wrong.
I've been banging my head against the proverbial wall trying to working out how to talk to a Bluetooth device that uses the Serial Port Profile (SPP) in a Windows 8 Metro-Style App. I'm starting to come to the conclusion that it's not currently possible, but was wondering if anyone else has been able to get this to work, or can think of anything to try.
There doesn't seem to be an API available to do this, but would it be possible to connect to a device at a lower level?
According to a Microsoft rep, this is not possible in Metro:
http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/tailoringappsfordevices/thread/0cb2a6c1-d1f1-4872-aa32-709acd90b94d
It should be possible to write a custom driver to accomplish this, but that is significantly more of a challenge than writing a Metro app.