NFC handover to Bluetooth or WiFi for data transfer - bluetooth

I'm currently working on a project for an interactive visitor centre in Laguna Beach, CA.
There are many touchscreen devices around the space, which we are developing some cool software for, however one of the client requests is to allow visitors to transfer image, pdf and video files from an interactive coffee table touchscreen onto their phone.
The client has seen this on YouTube/CES etc.. You know, where someone puts a phone on a the interactive surface and then magically swipes images onto the phone from the screen.
Of course, if the visitor had a custom app on their phone, and was already on the same WiFi this would not be so much of a problem. I suspect this is what happens on these magic demos that we see.
In our situation, we don't want the visitor to download an app really, we just want the easiest solution and experience for the visitor. We have a public WiFi available to us, and we can install an NFC device on the touchscreen and the touchscreen also has bluetooth.
My ideal scenario would be for the user to pop their NFC enabled phone on the table, the table recognises it, pairs with BT or WiFi and away we go! I'm not sure how practical this is though having researched around. Clearly thats not going to work on an iPhone. I don't mind a couple of mechanisms i.e. one for Android/other NFC phones and one for iPhone.
Does anyone have any experience of this kind of thing and suggestions of how to handle it?!
Here's a mock up of our 32" Coffee Table touchscreen just for some context
Thanks for reading through and having a think :-)

I know that there is standardized way to pair Bluetooth device using NFC tag. I think this is the best solution for you. The authority that is standardizing this format is called NFC Forum. You can find more info about the topic in this document: Bluetooth Secure Simple Pairing Using NFC

Related

ESP32 Bluetooth Pairing To Phone

I am trying to make it so that my ESP32 board can detect my phone when I approach it based on RSSI. However, the ESP32 cannot see the phone unless the phone is in discovery mode, which is not super useful. To solve this, I was hoping to pair my phone with the ESP32 so that the phone would always be looking for the ESP32, and connect when it is found without any human intervention.
I decided to try the Arduino integration, but as I was working through all of the examples I couldn't find any with this functionality, so I'm kind of lost. If this is not possible or easy with Arduino, I am willing to switch, but I was unable to find anything about pairing in the normal phone interface for ESP-IDF either.
So, basically, using an ESP32, how do I pair to a phone?
The easiest way is to make the esp a gatt server and advertise a specific service. The phone will look for that specific service and connects if found.
You could make an app for your phone, like for ios its pretty easy. But keep in mind for mobile devices a continuous search for devices could be power unfriendly if misused.
If you use esp-idf instead of arduino, some examples are included. (You could use the vscode integrated esp-idd) Check learnesp32.com for an easy step into the basics, coming from Arduino.

How can I receive Bluetooth audio signal and forward it to a Bluetooth speaker?

I need some help because I don´t know how to approach this challenge.
I want to build a device, that's receiving a Bluetooth audio signal and is forwarding it to a Bluetooth speaker. It´s also running some algorithms with the audio data and also simultaneously sending results via UDP to a different device.
I already thought about using two or three ESP32s, using one with an extra Bluetooth module, or searching for a whole different MCU with Bluetooth 5.0 or higher and Wifi 5GHz. But I don´t know approach the best is, or maybe a completely different one.
Some context, why we want to do it:
We want to create a real-time light show, based on the current playing song. It is already working for PC, but also want to make it accessible for phone users. Sadly there is no way to capture the internal audio on iPhone or Android phones. Our Idea to make the music sync with the phone possible is that you are connected with the phone via Bluetooth to our "sync box" which is then connected to the speaker via Bluetooth or AUX. The "sync box" is running our algorithms for creating the light shows and then sending the data to the microcontrollers from the light strips.
So maybe you have an idea how we can sync the lights to the music completely differently or how I can approach the challenge with Bluetooth.
Any help is highly appreciated.
Thanks a lot.

Is there way to detect a certain phone from a few feet away

I am trying to build a system with a raspberry pi that allows clients access into a building depending on their membership status. Right now, it uses QR codes, but I want to know if it is possible to add a feature where it uses some technology like NFC or RFID or Bluetooth to detect their phone or RFID card from at least a foot away and confirm they have a membership.
Someone told me I could use RFID, but I am only aware of that being used in short-distance applications, like a card on a hotel door. I am not sure about Bluetooth either, because the phone would have to connect to the pi first, right? Maybe there is something I don't know about. So please offer any suggestions. Thanks
I think bluetooth does good work for tracking user. Since it's the best to handle large distances than NFC and RFID these two technologies are used for low range scenarios, check this link.
In addition, you can check distance(using Proximity and RSSI) and membership status as well. but you need to know how to handle bluetooth connectivity with raspberry pi check this link. as well create an app on that mobile phone to use Bluetooth (depending which OS you're using for Android, iOS).
Regards,

Is there a way to enumerate the video devices on a Java ME phone?

I recently downloaded a barcode reading application for my phone, an LG KU990i (AKA the Viewty) However, there's a problem that renders the application nearly useless: the Viewty has 2 cameras -- the main one, and a secondary camera located on the face of the unit -- and it is the secondary camera that is unfortunately set as the phone's default video capture device. As you can't point the secondary at anything and see what it's pointing at at the same time, it makes it a bit difficult to snap a barcode!
According to the JSR-135 spec, it is possible to specify a video capture device other than the default... if you know the device name. This does not appear to be documented anywhere on LG's Web site, nor does the JSR-135 spec describe any way of enumerating the devices on a phone... or is there? Failing that, are there any naming conventions for video devices commonly in use that LG might be using?
I've logged a ticket with LG, but as it's an old device, I don't imagine them breaking their backs in getting back to me... I should also point out that this is purely for my own curiosity so no-one here should feel obliged to break their backs either!
As far as I know there is no way to get list of all available catpure:// urls.
All urls I know:
capture://image,
capture://video
capture://devcam0
capture://devcam1
Source:
http://www.forum.nokia.com/info/sw.nokia.com/id/bc00e4ce-7df3-4527-962c-d39843a808d0/MIDP_Mobile_Media_API_Support_In_Nokia_Devices_v1_0_en.pdf.html
LG responded to my support ticket. Apparently, it's not possible to access the primary camera on the Viewty from Java, making it pretty much useless for barcode scanning. Answer reproduced here for search engines.
You support ticket has been answered. Please visit the LG Mobile Developer Network and login to check the answer at [My Page > My Tickets].
KU990i default video capture device is the secondary camera
Answer :
Hi,
KU990i have to Two camera module
differently.
Main camera using Joran chipset and
sub(front camera) using Qualcomm
chipset.
Joran chip doesn’t supported JSR135.
Therefore, we couldn’t supported to
the JSR135 using for main camera.
(it is H/W limitation)
It was inform to operator already and
we remember operator was confirm it.
So that, we only supported sub camera
for JSR135.
BR,

Identifying mobile devices paired via bluetooth with PixelSense

I want to be able to pair Microsoft PixelSense hardware with multiple mobile devices via bluetooth and I want PixelSense to know which device is which. So if I place two phones on a table, PixelSense should be able to label them by device name. My initial thought was to have the phone display an Identity Tag that has encoded its Bluetooth MAC address so that it could associate them but PixelSense sees in infrared and can't read the phone screen so that idea is out. Can anyone think of another way to do this?
Microsoft has demonstrated a way to do this in their Mobile Connect sample application. They've ingeniously used the fact that almost all phones have a camera that faces down when the phone is placed on a flat surface. So they created an app that will read incoming color data from Surface while the phone is sitting on it.
So it goes like this:
The Surface app starts and makes the Surface computer itself visible on bluetooth (although you may have to do this manually in admin mode, can't remember)
you run the mobile app on your phone, click connect, and place it on the Surface at a designated spot
the Surface flashes a serious of colors into the phone's camera
the phone decodes those colors into a pin and scans through all the open bluetooth devices it can see until it finds one that is a desktop running the appropriate service and accepts the decoded pin.
Now the two are connected with no need for manual input and the Surface knows which physical device it's talking to because it knows which pin it displayed to each device.
*Note - They don't actually allow multiple simultaneous connections in this sample app, but I see no reason why it wouldn't work.
One issue with this approach (other than being pretty complicated to code), is the need for the app on the phone. One way to make it easier for people to get the app is to display a Microsoft Tag or qrcode on the Surface for people to scan (they're much more likely to have a scanning app already). I don't think there's any getting around the need to have something installed on the phone if you're using bluetooth anyway.

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