I work with POS devices. We have a cross-platform mobile Xamarin App which talks to POS devices using Bluetooth or USB.It would be a great help if you can do that.
No you cannot, unfortunately the only way to interact with any device needed by the mobile client is through web requests. Unfortunately this is limited because no 1 BLE solution would work for everyone (actually it would only work for very few).
Another challenge is that the automated UI tests will run in the order determined by Xamarin Test Cloud and you may potentially have multiple devices interacting with your one device.
You could do this all locally though on your own device. You would just trigger the UITest locally through the command line and have the BLE device by your phone. I know this isn't ideal, but really one of your best options here.
The other option you have is creating a middle-man for your POS devices. Basically the middleman would be a REST API hosted on some IoT device that contains BLE integration. You would than have to forward the BLE requests from the IoT device to your POS device, but this solution would require larger time frames for the data to transfer and wouldn't necessarily be a "real-world" testing scenario. I would expect that you would have some false failure tests due to the details with creating this solution. I have done something similar for Particle, but I was only able to run UI Tests on 1 device at a time.
Disclosure: I work for Xamarin/Microsoft.
Related
I am doing some research on the WebUSB API for our company because we are going to start to manufacture devices in house.
Our current device manufacture comes with an application so the team can plug the device into a computer and diagnose it. Their application allows us to read outputs from the device, as well as pushing commands/configuration to the device over a wired connection.
Since this device is 100% ours, we are also responsible for building out the diagnostic tooling. We need some sort of interface that allows a user to read outputs and send commands/configuration to the device over a wired USB connection.
Is the webUSB the correct API? If not, what are some suggestions for accomplishing the requirement? Are we limited to building some sort of desktop or mobile application?
I would recommend resources below to read to help you understand if the WebUSB API fits your needs or not:
https://web.dev/devices-introduction/ helps you pick the appropriate API to communicate with a hardware device of your choice.
https://web.dev/build-for-webusb/ explains how to build a device to take full advantage of the WebUSB API.
From what you describe, WebUSB isn't strictly required but won't hurt either.
First and foremost, you will need to implement the USB interfaces reading data and sending configurations. It will be a custom protocol, and not one of the standard USB device classes such as HID, video or mass storage. The details of the protocol and if you use control, interrupt or bulk transfers is your choice.
I'm assuming you will connect the devices to Windows PCs, and you likely don't want to put money into writing device drivers. If so, the easiest approach is to add the required descriptors and control requests required for Microsoft OS 2.0 Descriptors. That way, the WinUSB driver will be installed automatically when the device is plugged in.
Using the WinUSB API, a Windows application will then be able to communicate with the USB device. No additional drivers are needed. (On macOS and Linux it's even easier as you don't need the Microsoft OS 2.0 Descriptors in the first place.)
On top of that you can implement the additional descriptors and control requests for WebUSB. It will provide the additional benefit that you can write a web application (instead of a native application) for communicating with the USB device. (Currently, you are restricted to the Chrome browser.) WebUSB devices should implement the WinUSB descriptors as the alternative (.INF files, manual installation process) is a pain.
The already mentioned web page https://web.dev/build-for-webusb/ is a complete example of how to implement it.
I am developing an app that controls a product's operation. The communication is via BLE. My configuration is
App - Peripheral (iOS, Android)
Product - Central (uses Laird BT900 module)
iOS as a peripheral works fine (pairing and bonding) ; Android PIN pairing works fine, but subsequent bonding (or reconnect when in range) there are a lot of issues and termination of connection. I am using the supported list of devices for Android BLE and I also understand that there are many known issues that come with different manufacturers/chipset vendors
The issue I am getting is, as seen by nrfConnect, is with descriptors. Android app doesnt show descriptors when seen in nrfConnect whereas iOS shows. I do not know what is the difference
Is it a common practice to use a phone as a peripheral ? Or is it a risk - because this is a medical device.
Are there any best practices for Android as a peripheral ?
I have following back up plans in case Android issue is not resolved. I think following would work on any BLE supported phones without having any issues with the variability.
Plan A : PIN pairing on every connection with the product. This is the most secure and most annoying
Plan B : Implement just works pairing with a app layer password before taking control of the product.
Question : Is just works safe and encrypted ? Is it snoop-safe or MITM-safe ?
Thanks in advance!
A few thoughts from your questions:
1a. (From my Android experience) I think its uncommon to have the phone be the peripheral. To my knowledge all iOS devices support peripheral mode but only a very small subset of Android devices are able to support it. I say this because I've been experimenting with BTLE beacons using the AltBeacon library. From this work I have discovered that only certain Android phones can broadcast BTLE advertise packets. Given that BTLE advertising is the first step in initiating a BTLE session I imagine that this prevents many Android phones from being compatible with peripheral mode.
If all of your users can use an iOS device, then you're set, otherwise this may be a problem.
1b) I can't speak to the specific risk of using a mobile device with your medical device, that depends on what the medical device is doing and how you're using the mobile app.
2) See 1a
3) The specific encryption scheme you used is also based on your product's risk profile. I would say that Just Works is not an ideal solution. The just works pairing process is not snoop-safe and can be re-initiated via a MITM. Other than that I can't speak to the strength of BTLE encryption.
I am trying to find a clever way to keep a BLE app active in the background on iOS 6, without breaking any of Apple's rules. I plan to use the phone as a peripheral device and another BLE circuit as the central. My app will automatically be opened when a user arrives to a building using geofencing. After that the iPhone will connect to the first BLE central device it sees (the device will be in its white list). The user will then be able to move throughout the building switching to different BLE "nodes".
My question is: What do I need to do in the background when a user is stationary at their desk so that the app does not get suspended due to memory resources?
My idea is based on this solution for a separate problem: There could potentially (not regularly) be 10-50 users in an area with only a few BLE "nodes" and I read at bluetooth.org that I could setup a dynamic connection system, basically rotating connections through all the users.
My idea is to setup a similar dynamic system where the central device (not the iPhone) disconnects the device on regular intervals (30-40 minutes) and then the iPhone will reconnect.
Is this something that some feasible? Is this against the iOS development guidelines? I was unable to find anything explicit about this. I have also asked on the iOS developer forum, but unfortunately it is not as popular as this site.
Thanks in advance!
Xcode -> Project target -> Capabilities -> Enable background mode
Check Uses Bluetooth LE Accessories
Capabilities
Also enable the following key in .plist file
Required background modes
App communicates using CoreBluetooth
Plist
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 am writing a windows application (written entirely in C++) which reads files from a storage card on a mobile phone running Windows Mobile. The tough part is, I don't know how to make my application detect the event that a user has connected the mobile phone to the USB of laptop. I did some reading on MSDN and have written a small code using RegisterDeviceNotification, which detects whenever a USB disk is attached/removed from the laptop. However, I am unable to tweak this to make it work for phone type devices. Please help me out through any links/tutroials which explains this(preferrably C++, as I don't know .NET or C#).
Thanks
Alok
According to this article you can use RegisterDeviceNotification to get notifications when activesync detects a device has been plugged/unplugged. (See option 3 at the end of the article)
It may just be a matter of setting up the correct notification filter.
Windows Mobile devices use RNDIS, a network interface protocol behind the scenes. Hence, the RegisterDeviceNotification method still works, but you're looking for a DEV_BROADCAST_DEVICEINTERFACE, not DEV_BROADCAST_VOLUME. (i.e. dbch_devicetype==DBT_DEVTYP_DEVICEINTERFACE)
You can use RAPI or RAPI2 to detect when a Windows Mobile device connects to a PC via Active Sync or Windows Mobile Device Center. RAPI can also be used to read the files on the storage card and much more.
RAPI is simpler to program because it is a C based API. RAPI2 has more functionality than RAPI, but is an object oriented COM API. If your needs are simple and you only care about one device/connection at a time then RAPI is good enough. There are two RAPI functions used to detect connections: CeRapiInit (blocking), and CeRapiInitEx (signals an event upon connection).