I'd like to send a beacon signal from my mobile web browser. Is there a way to broadcast BLE in a browser?
I checked the non-standard Bluetooth API, but there was no such function.
Thank you for reading it.
Unfortunately there doesn't seem to be support for this yet. There's an open request for this feature as can be seen here:-
https://bugs.chromium.org/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=1043409
https://github.com/WebBluetoothCG/web-bluetooth/issues/231
More information about web bluetooth support is found here:-
Start building with web bluetooth and progressive web apps
Web bluetooth demos
Web bluetooth sample code
Related
Hey Socket Mobile team,
I was wondering if you have plans on integrating with Web Bluetooth. I've tried connecting to my Socket Mobile D750 from chrome://bluetooth-internals on Chrome version 59.0 but I'm getting an error that says Unsupported_Device.
I have the scanner in HID mode. Chrome's documentation says that it supports BLE 4.0, but I couldn't find which version of BLE your scanners have.
No plans right now.
At the time of writing, none of our barcode scanners have BLE. The recently announced D600 RFID reader uses BLE and supports reading using HID mode or a GATT profile - but you wouldn't be able to write tags
However, the upcoming Capture SDK uses HTTP on Android and Windows to communicate between your app and the service. If you are targeting those platforms and are okay with being on the bleeding edge, you could write your own Javascript client.
Is it possible to search for beacon data (uuid, url, ...) with a progressive web application using just web technologies that is without using native mobile technologies (Android, ios, ...)?
Thanks in advance.
Unfortunately, this is not possible as of July 2020. While Google has been working on the WebBluetooth project to bring support for many bluetooth operations to the browser, at least in Google Chrome implementations on Android 6+, Mac or ChromeOS.
Scanning for beacons is not yet possible as of this writing. The API requires that the OS scan for devices matching a requested criteria, and then let the user choose a device to connect to using a user interface. This essentially rules out beacon detection.
Bluetooth scanning APIs are still in draft form here.
EDIT: The APIs mentioned by #zurfyx in the answer below allow you to scan for and connect to an advertised GATT service, but do not allow you to read the data in the advertisement. This is a critical distinction, as reading the data in the advertisement is the key capability required for actual bluetooth beacon detection. That capability is missing from that API. Without that capability, it is impossible to detect a beacon, it is only possible to connect to a BLE device that might be an Eddystone or other service advertisement-based beacon.
UPDATE July 2020: Safari will not be getting any WebBluetooth APIs at all due to privacy concerns, according to a June 2020 announcement by Apple This makes Bluetooth scanning impossible on iOS we apps for the foreseeable future.
As of July 2020, Chrome does not support scanning arbitrary advertisements. See status here: https://github.com/WebBluetoothCG/web-bluetooth/blob/master/implementation-status.md
Disclaimer: I wrote eddystone-web-bluetooth (a library which makes it easy to read and write to an Eddystone device). github#eddystone-web-bluetooth npm#eddystone-web-bluetooth
It is possible to scan for Bluetooth devices by using the Web Bluetooth API (currently supported only by Chrome).
By using Bluetooth GATT service, you can connect to Eddystone devices and send/receive data by communicating following their public specifications (which are basically a list of request codes, and the format in which to send and expect their responses).
These services include information such as:
URL
Advertising interval
Lock state
and more
By using the Bluetooth standard information you can get to know the most generic device information, such as its id and name:
navigator.bluetooth.requestDevice
#beaufortfrancois wrote the probably first Eddystone Web Bluetooth configuration code (source code / demo), so it is probably worth a read if you want to dig more into this. I learned a lot from it.
The Chromecast device is a "receiver device [that] runs a scaled-down Chrome browser with a receiver application". Can I download and install this receiver app on a chrome browser for example on my Windows notebook?
I have implemented a complete chromecast v2 receiver, called YouMap ChromeCast Receiver, available in Google play store and Amazon store, xda-developer thread here: http://forum.xda-developers.com/android-tv/chromecast/app-youmap-chromecast-receiver-android-t3161851
The current Chromecast protocol is a completely different one from the original DIAL based protocol. Right now, only YouTube still uses the old protocol, which chromecast maintains its backward compatibility.
The discovery is mDNS, exactly same as Apple TV bonjour protocol.
The most difficult part is device authentication, the sender and the receiver perform handshakes by exchanging keys and certificates in a way extremely difficult to crack. AppleTV does the same using FairPlay encryption.
The next difficult part is the mirroring protocol, which is also very complicated, need to deal with packet splits, packet retransmissions. Overall, chromecast mirroring protocol is well designed, better than miracast, better than AirPlay mirroring (I have also implemented both of them, so I know what I am talking about).
When I get chances, will write more here.
The chromecast device works using the DIAL protocol. It is completely possible to emulate this protocol using some simple code to listen on the multicast group for discovery and then handle the HTTP requests to launch applications. It is then the launched application that communicates with the casting device, I believe using the RAMP protocol.
Luckily for us the applications that the chromecast device uses are mostly web applications meaning our device emulator just needs to launch a web browser and point it to a specific url when it receives an application request.
For example the youtube app, after device discovery and establishing where the applications are located (part of DIAL). Will send a HTTP POST request containing a pairing key to /<apps url>/YouTube. All the emulating device needs to do now is open https://www.youtube.com/tv?<pairing key> in a browser window. From here, I believe, communication for controlling the youtube app is not sent through the casting device but through the open tabs on the casting device and the emulator.
This is my understanding of how the chromecast device works and specifically the youtube app from looking at https://github.com/dz0ny/leapcast which is a python emulator that has youtube and google music working.
Google is in progress of open sourcing some part of the chrome cast.
https://code.google.com/p/chromium/codesearch#chromium/src/chromecast/
https://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/list?q=label:Chromecast
So theoretically you can build a similar device.
I need to develop a project based on Bluetooth in mobile. Since I am new to j2me I studied some of the articles and run the project until the discovery of devices and services. I need to communicate between devices and transfer the desired files. I search code for client server communication through Bluetooth and got it but I didn't know how to run those code and implement further.
I have go through articles and I can run client server communication. Now I need to transfer the file and communicate to the user which was beyond the limit of my mobile through the another mobile which was within my limit.
JSR82.com has many articles and tutorials about how to use bluetooth from J2ME.
Better you refer the book, "BLUETOTH APPLICATION PROGRAMMING WITH JAVA API" by C.Balakumar. It is helpfull to you.
I need to make an app in J2ME that can be able to read a SMS and then print it on an epson tm-p60 printer(ESC/POS emulation) via bluetooth.
i looked at the epson supprt site but the only ADK/drivers they provide are for:
1.Sun Java2 SDK Standard Edition Version 1.4.2_10
2.Sun Java2 SDK Standard Edition Version 1.4.2_04
3.Sun Java SE Development Kit 6 Update 3
so i don't know how am i gonna be able to use ESC/POS commands inJ2ME.
I'm a bit clueless on how i will approach this project.. plus w/c would be better to use for this project? Netbeans or Eclipse?
Thanks!
SPP (Serial Port Profile) over Bluetooth means using an RFCOMM connection to send and receive data as if it were a physical serial connection. This is part of JSR 82, so you will be able to develop only on handsets that support this JSR.
You need to:
Figure out how to discover bluetooth devices, and scan for SPP services on a discovered device, then connect to one of those services, using one of the many JSR 82 tutorials out there.
Then send ESC/POS protocol data over that connection -- I assume you have the protocol specification available? Google turned up this application programming guide.
HTH.
JSR-82 Bluetooth API support L2CAP protocol, RFCOMM and OBEX profile. I don't know detail of Bluetooth basic printing profile (BPP) but, if you look into basic printing profile document you can find that BPP built on OBEX profile.
I can't find open source project for BPP on JSR-82. Please try to search it, but if you can't find one you might need to write your own.