He We are doing an app that helps people people paying for there parking.
We need to know when they enter or leave the car.
Our Idea was : When you enter the car you connects to the bluetooth in the car and when you leave you disconnect - Is it possibly to get an event when the connect and disconnect happens - Even if app is not in front ?
Any one that has done this before?
This could be possible on cars that supports BLE together with iOS' Native Core Bluetooth Background Execution Modes. You'll be able to listen to connect and disconnect events even on background.
Note that enabling the background modes require App Review Approval before it get to the AppStore.
Related
This is from the Core Bluetooth Background Processing for iOS Apps section found in official docs:
Performing Long-Term Actions in the Background
Some apps may need to use the Core Bluetooth framework to perform
long-term actions in the background. As an example, imagine you are
developing a home security app for an iOS device that communicates
with a door lock (equipped with Bluetooth low energy technology). The
app and the lock interact to automatically lock the door when the user
leaves home and unlock the door when the user returns—all while the
app is in the background. When the user leaves home, the iOS device
may eventually become out of range of the lock, causing the connection
to the lock to be lost. At this point, the app can simply call the
connectPeripheral:options: method of the CBCentralManager class, and
because connection requests do not time out, the iOS device will
reconnect when the user returns home.
Okay, we have an app which locks/unlocks doors as appropriate... So as pointed out, this works when app is in the background (most likely in the suspended mode). Now, lets move on (with quoting docs):
Now imagine that the user is away from home for a few days. If the app
is terminated by the system while the user is away, the app will not
be able to reconnect to the lock when the user returns home, and the
user may not be able to unlock the door. For apps like these, it is
critical to be able to continue using Core Bluetooth to perform
long-term actions, such as monitoring active and pending connections.
So, if the user was away from home for a few days, and app has been terminated by the iOS, we will have to implement state preservation and restoration, so that iOS relaunch the app when connection request is detected, and let the app to unlock the door. Related quotes:
In the case of the home security app described above, the system
would monitor the connection request, and re-relaunch the app to
handle the centralManager:didConnectPeripheral: delegate callback when
the user returned home and the connection request completed.
This all make sense, but pay attention to this part again:
Now imagine that the user is away from home for a few days. If the app
is terminated by the system while the user is away, the app will not be able to reconnect to the lock when the user returns home, and
the user may not be able to unlock the door. For apps like these, it
is critical to be able to continue using Core Bluetooth to perform
long-term actions...
Does this means, if the app is forcefully killed by the user at some moment while he was away from home, that this will work as well ? Means when user comes home, the door will unlock anyway, or he must manually relaunch the app to unlock the door?
I am asking this, because of how relaunch of terminated apps works. It is not the same when user kills the app, and when iOS kills the app which supports background execution:
Apps that support background execution may be relaunched by the system
to handle incoming events. If an app is terminated for any reason
other than the user force quitting it, the system launches the app
when one of the following events happens...
Source
So once again, if the user was away for a few days and he has closed the app by double tapping Home button and dragging up, will he be able to enter his home without manually relaunching the app?
No. If the app is forcefully killed by the user then it will not be woken up again. The only scenario where it will be woken up is if the app was terminated by iOS itself, which will happen sooner or later when the app has not been it the foreground for a while. It will also not be relaunched if the device is rebooted.
Having said that, from my experience with Core Bluetooth I have come to the conclusion that State Preservation is way too unreliable. I would believe that the use-case that you are trying to implement will not work well enough, which is ironic since it is exactly the use-case that Apple is promoting it their documentation.
For example, you will have issues with the following:
State restoration will only relaunch your app due to bluetooth related activity if the event originates from a peripheral accessory that you are communicating with, such as connect/disconnect events and characteristics notifications. For other events, most importantly general bluetooth-state-change events, your app will not be relaunched and notified of this. The reason why this is so bad is because any bluetooth-state-change events will cause all pending connections to be tossed, meaning that your pending connections to the door lock will be lost. However, since your app is not relaunched to be notified of this, then it effectively means that your application will still believe that the connections are still pending when in fact they are not. Since your application is terminated at this time, the only way for it to wake up again is by having the user manually launch it again (or alternatively “hack” other background modes for this purpose, which will NOT work very reliably either).
This scenario happens if the user toggles Flight Mode, toggles Bluetooth, power cycles the iOS device, or any other undefined reasons that many cause state changes… And it is very unlikely that a bluetooth-state-change will not happen if "... the user is away from home for a few days.".
This "issue" has been reported by me and others multiple times, but Apple does not appear to want to fix it for some reason.
Apart from this, many other issues exists as well, such as the XPC connection being interrupted at different times for no apparent reason. I have also noticed that the pending connection can go into “limbo” mode where the peripheral state gets set to Connecting, but in fact it will never connect unless you cycle the connection state. Etc, etc, ...
/A
NOTE: This app I am working on is completely for my own usage and will not be on app store so please don't give answers referring that.
I want my app to do some process in background or after termination (double tap the home button and swipe the app from applications multitask) every few minutes. The process is very very light and quick so it won't drain the battery. This process shouldn't require internet connection. I have seen some answers here like and I will explain what are the problems:
VoIP. The problem with VoIP is wither it should be in background to use UIApplication.sharedApplication().setKeepAliveTimeout(..) method which doesn't work when the app is terminated or it should be connected to the internet to establish tcp connection and receive commands from sever and as mentioned before I want it to be internet independent.
Location Services. I found this excellent site with some great articles but the problem is it only works when the mobile phone is moved more than 500 meters. It depends on the location movement so when the phone is staying somewhere there will be no code execution.
Playing an silent audio loop. The problem here is if the user plays another audio (which is completely possible like music or phone call) the app will terminate!
Jailbreak Launch Daemons. I can't require jailbreak so it should be solved with a non-jailbreak solution:(.
I am free to use any kind of private-API's and there will be no restriction for that.
Thanks in advanced
I also faced with such problem, and don't find any solution.
The main problem is if user manually terminated app - in this case you can't do nothing...
Only way is:
a) use Location Services (as you mention)
b) use Push Notifications with background fetch
I'm developing one iOS application which is related with OBD2. The app provides feature like connecting with obd2 device and read out data.
With user's permission, I want to implement below feature even if app is not running at all :
Now I want to do When user enters car, connection to obd2 device is to be done automatically and check for some params if i gets failure on those data then i need to send data to cloud for analysis.
How can i know about user enter car ? I'm thinking one way like continuously checking the Wifi Availability to OBD2 device and if i get wifi available then i can say "user is nearer to car or in the car".
But again problem is that if app is not running in the background then how can trigger this kind of event.My app is not supporting any background mode like voip, audio, location, newstand etc..
Is there any other way like local notification or any other way by which i can trigger event that user has entered in car even if app is not running at all ?
Can Background mode like Receive updates from External Accessory mode or External Accessory framework support me in this feature implementation ?
Can i develop this feature in such way that Apple approves this feature ?
Any other feedback or suggestion will be appreciated !
Hello I do hope someone can help me with this question as i thought it would be easy at first!
I'm a studying EE student who is not that good with code but trying!
Let me tell you my goal at the end of this.....
I would like to be able to open an app on the iPhone and then execute a bit of code to send a message, all via Bluetooth.
I would like to be able to pair this small Bluetooth device to the iPhone only once and be able for it to be in sleep mode (500 nano amps :D awesome) and when I turn it on (via a small switch) it will open an app and send that message. (the app is already done, you just have to press a button on the app in order to send the message, that's why I would like to use a Bluetooth device so you don't have to have the app open at all times!)
Sorry for the long paragraph but I need help! I have the Bluegiga BLE113 dev kit and im overwhelmed with all the information they give you! But I don't see anywhere where I connect to the iPhone and do what I want to do.
Has anyone done this before, can you steer me in the right direction?
As long as the person downloading the app has previously opened the app and they've agreed to backgrounding capabilities, then yes you can send the message in the background (if already connected). However, you cannot force your app into the foreground on a non-jailbroken iOS device.
Check out the BLE Transfer App sample code to get you started.
I guess what you need is:
the periperal implements the peripheral role
the app implements the central role
the app is trying to connect to the peripheral continuously (connectPeripheral:options:)
the peripheral wakes up on trigger and the phone connection request completes
the peripheral signals to the central using a characteristic change notification
the app receives the notification and executes the business functionality of your desire
the peripheral goes to sleep again
the app receives the disconnect event and starts a connectPeripheral:options: immediately
the app should utilize the new restoration feature of Core Bluetooth (watch the WWDC 2013 session 703 video)
This is just an outline and you need to know lots of small things to get it right. I suggest you try to go ahead and implement piece by piece and if you get stuck, ask a new questions. As #tdevoy suggested, the BTLE Transfer App is a good starting point. The Heart Rate Monitor is also a good source of info (OSX API is the same as the iOS).
I am creating a private distribution app and I am wondering if it is possible, using any methods or private API's, to open my app when a bluetooth connection has been made.
What I have discovered so far is that with iOS 7 and the ability to use iBeacons you can enter into bluetooth proximity and you can have your app send a notification to allow the user to then open the app.
What I am hoping to do then is have the app running in the background and listen for an iBeacon connection and, if one has been made, actually launch the app without the users control instead of just sending a notification.
I realize this would never be allowed publically, however is there anything private I can look at to achieve this without jailbreaking? I know to launch some apps you can do [[UIApplication sharedApplication] openURL:[NSURL URLWithString:url]]; however I want my app to listen for an iBeacon and then open itself up.
Is there any way or work around to achieve this?
Moving app from background to foreground without user interaction is pain in the ass. Sorry, don't have a solution, just want to share some information:
I asked the same question here and posted a bounty on it and got no good response:
Show some UI from background in audio player or VOIP app on iOS
At some moment I found a solution with the help of another person. It was based on usage of GSEvent (sending clicks to UI). You can look following questions. However, as I know, in iOS 7 these API became protected by entitlement. So, this method is dead (most likely).
Using GraphicsServices.h/GSEvent as well as compiling CLI iPhone tools with Xcode
Use GSEvent to send touch event,but it's invalid.
Simulating System Wide Touch Events on iOS
iPhone, how to fire a button event in programmatically
Apps can use region monitoring to be notified when the user crosses geographic boundaries or when the user enters or exits the vicinity of a beacon. While a beacon is in range of the user’s device, apps can also monitor for the relative distance to the beacon.
In iOS, regions associated with your app are tracked at all times, including when your app is not running. If a region boundary is crossed while an app is not running, that app is relaunched into the background to handle the event. Similarly, if the app is suspended when the event occurs, it is woken up and given a short amount of time (around 10 seconds) to handle the event. When necessary, an app can request more background execution time.
For detailed info:
https://developer.apple.com/library/ios/documentation/UserExperience/Conceptual/LocationAwarenessPG/RegionMonitoring/RegionMonitoring.html#//apple_ref/doc/uid/TP40009497-CH9-SW1
There are two scenarios: you either want users to be able to do something with your device other then use your app, or you want them to always be locked into your app.
In the former case you should trust user. Just show the push, timer or location notification and let them decide to launch the app or not.
In the latter case just lock the device using guided access mode.