I'd like to have bluetooth module with iOS support and Rx/Tx pins. iOS devices support only MFI-certified Bluetooth 2.1 modules (and i can't find any) or BLE modules. But most BLE modules do not have Rx/Ts pins for transparent interaction.
As possible solution #1 Adafruit created board based on nRF8001 bt chip with custom BLE service with 1 characteristics for Rx and 1 characteristics for Tx and but unfortunately it supports SPI only and i need direct Rx/Tx pins to be wired to Arduino board directly. That needs Arduino sketches modification to work over SPI instead of Serial class and that's bad.
Also i've found solution #2 from Sparkfun based on BC118 chip. It seems to have custom BLE service too but with SPP support! But it's comparably expensive and not widespread.
The question is:
how to develop custom BLE service with direct Rx/Tx pin for widespread cc2540/cc2541 and cheap chips? Are there any hardware limitations/requirements for it?
Related
I need to use ESP8266 standalone. I want to connect HM-10 bluetooth module to it and fire its AT commands and read the UUID of devices nearby.
I can do that by firing AT commands on HM-10 from Arduino and FT232RL. But how do I do it in Lua?
Initially I didn't fully understand what the problem is. So, I was reluctant to give an answer based on vague ideas and assumptions. So, it seems you have an Arduino BT from which you send data to an HM-10 which is connected to the ESP8266. What the FT232RL's role is I still don't understand but it doesn't seem relevant in the context of the question.
Wire/solder the HM-10 pins 1 & 2 to the ESP8266 RX/TX. Then you can read data using the NodeMCU UART module: https://nodemcu.readthedocs.org/en/dev/en/modules/uart. uart.on() allows to register callbacks triggered when data is received.
In case your ESP device is a NodeMCU devkit you might have to use uart.alt() depending on which RX/TX pins the HM-10 is connected to. The devkit has more than one set of RX/TX pins, see https://github.com/nodemcu/nodemcu-devkit-v1.0/.
I am trying to wrap my head around the possibilities of the HM-10 but am very new to a lot of how it works. I am only familiar with higher level things.
I originally thought I was going to use the hm-10 as an iBeacon but quickly found out it's limitations. Here was the original plan prior:
iBeacon(HM-10) broadcast in a particular room, when I walk in with my iPhone, it detects my iPhone and then does something, i.e Sets one of its Pins to High.
But based on my research now, this is not possible with iBeacon? I need to use iBeacon broadcasting in hand with regular bluetooth?
As in, upon my App/Phone detecting the iBeacon it then pairs with the HM-10 and sends an AT- command to set one of the pins HIGH.
Does all of this make sense? Could anyone provide some more input?
I am in the process of putting together an iPhone App but just wanted to know if I am on the right track.
Since the HM-10 is based on the CC2540, it should be possible to turn it into a Bluetooth LE beacon, including one that supports an iBeacon format.
A few thoughts to help your understanding:
Standard Bluetooth LE beacons (AltBeacon, iBeacon, URL beacon) are transmit only devices that don't detect phones -- phones detect them using a custom app. So when you say "it detects my iPhone and then does something" this is diverging from a standard Bluetooth LE beacon.
The concept of "pairing" with a Bluetooth device is typically related to Bluetooth classic (e.g. pre-4.0) technology. Bluetooth LE devices like the beacons mentioned above have the concept of connecting to read and write GATT characteristics.
If you do build a custom BLE device that out of a HM-10/CC2540, it would be possible to make it "detect" mobile phones, perhaps by advertising a GATT service, and then doing something upon connecting and/or writing to a characteristic. Since the CC2540 contains GPIO pins, it would be possible to make it "do something" by making a pin go high.
There are two big chunks of work to doing what you describe: (1) writing custom firmware for the CC2540 and (2) writing an iPhone app using CoreBluetooth and/or CoreLocation iBeacon APIs. Before starting on the iOS side, you need to figure out how the Bluetooth device is going to work.
I am looking for a way to load data from an embedded device via a serial port (RS232) to an iPhone. The app needs to be on the AppStore and our company is not part of the MFI program.
Before you say, it can't be done, we are looking into Bluetooth Low Energy 4.0 as a possible solution. We can create a device that can turn ConnectBlue's OBS421 module into a serial port adapter (with the speed bursts limitation). To that effect, connectBlue provides their own protocol called Serial Port Service, but it is documented only on a very high level.
Does anyone have any experience in using this protocol? If so, can you provide an example(objective C) code that establishes communication in this way?
Has anyone submitted an app to Apple that does this without getting rejected for infringing MFI rules?
One more question.. The device I am trying to connect only supports serial commands in the EZII Escape Computer Command Set standard (PROG ID of "EZ2 2.0" and higher). They look different than the common ATT-Commands. Example: <ESC>Gc100<EOT>.
Any idea if I can send such commands via ConnectBlue's LE-SPS?
Your help is much appreciated.
Thank you!
I haven't used this protocol but from the documentation it seems quite straight-forward. You should be able to take any of the core-bluetooth examples and adapt it fairly quickly.
You need to look for a peripheral that is offering service 0x2456e1b926e28f83e744f34f01e9d701
This service exposes two characteristics -
0x2456e1b926e28f83e744f34f01e9d703 to read & write to the serial port
0x2456e1b926e28f83e744f34f01e9d704 for "credits" if you need flow control. Essentially it seems that this value indicates the number of bytes you can send to the device and you can write a value to indicate the number of bytes you are prepared to receive from the device
The device should support a full 8-bit data path, so I don't see why you would have a problem sending the serial commands.
Bluetooth Low Energy is specifically excluded from the MFI program, so you won't get rejected on that basis -
I want to develop an accessory that communicates with an Apple device
using only Bluetooth Low Energy. Do I need to join the MFi Program?
No. Accessories which connect to an Apple device using only Bluetooth
Low Energy/BTLE/Bluetooth 4.0 or standard Bluetooth profiles supported
by iOS are not part of the MFi Program.
Bluetooth Low Energy does not have a SPP defined as a standard protocol.
You have to program it yourself using the GATT service/characteristics, you just need to generate your own 128bit UUID (google it, there are plenty of UUID generators and even on Mac or Linux it's easy to generate from command prompt)
GATT sends smaller chunks of data which you would have to concatenate yourself in the other end.
Be aware that the throughput of BLE is quite low compared to Bluetooth Classic SPP. Maybe around 3kbytes/sec.
I would like to build an application on my iPhone that connects to my raspberry Pi. Because these are going to be in close proximity (next to each other), I'd like to use the wired connection (lightning port to USB) to communicate. Is this possible or must I use wireless technologies? My assumption is that wired would be better as it ensures a connection and would be faster, however, I am open to be corrected.
This is related to a hobbyist project where I want to access a raspberry pi sensor on my iphone. The sensor (and Pi) will be next to the iphone. I'm building a custom weird case to combine them.
Any thoughts much appreciated.
Thanks
Iain
For communication with peripheral devices (Raspberry Pi for example) you have several alternatives.
UART via 30-pin or lightning connector (MFi needed)
USB via 30-pin or lightning connector (MFi needed)
Quick start: Microchip's development kits. This module can prolong communication to RPi or you can try to implement the Accessory stack (and communication with authentification chip) to RPi itself.
FSK or similar modulated-audio communication via audio-jack (no MFi needed)
You would have to implement hardware FSK modem on the RPi side and a software one on the iOS side. It is a bit tricky but by no means impossible.
Of course you could implement software modem on the RPi side, too. But since RPi doesn't have audio input you would have to use an USB audio card or something. Or complicate your life trying to sample an analog pin fast enough.
User not really Jake made a quite impressive list of links on this topic here on SO.
Bluetooth as an External Accessory (MFi needed)
Quick start: RN-41/42-APL
Easy to use Bluetooth stack. Communication with authentification chip is handled by the BT module. Note that when communicating with iOS devices data troughput is not much better than when using BLE modules.
Bluetooth as a BLE module (no MFi needed)
Data troughput not much worse then the old BT. Implementing the communication might be a bit more tricky code-wise. This module seems interesting.
WiFi communication (no MFi needed)
WiFi might be a good choice. But for your device and iOS device to be able to find eachother you will need either static IP (for the server device) or minimal Zeroconf (Bonjour) implementation.
When using WiFi you can go either with infrastructure network (using external Access Point) or you could go with AdHoc (created by your device). Later seems promising but be careful - iOS7 & AdHoc network don't seem to work well together yet.
With WiFi you have many modules to choose from. A simpler to use would be a module like RN-XV WiFly Module. TCP stack is already implemented in the module - you can use simple UART communication. I'm not sure how to implement Zeroconf on this one.
Or there are raw WiFi modules like MRF24WG0MA/MB. They are stable and reliable and they can be used on home-etched PCB. Downside for RPi user would be that you would almost certainly need an PIC24 or something between the RPi and MRF24W. Microchip provides free TCP/IP stack for their microcontrollers and this stack includes Zeroconf.
And the easiest way: you could simply use a WiFi dongle (with RPi) for communication. Zeroconf should be easy enough to implement on the RPi - and it's not even needed at the begining if you are ok with assigning static IP to the RPi (if it acts as a server).
This is not possible without signing up for apples MFI program. You have to pay and sign a bunch of NDA's.
https://developer.apple.com/programs/mfi/
You can use other methods, like bluetooth and connection over the audio port.
While #RokJarc's answer is pretty complete, I've also had success with both wired (lightning to usb) and wireless connections using iOS's personal hotspot. Here are the steps:
For wired, on the Pi, install ipheth-utils:
sudo apt-get install ipheth-utils
And add an eth1 network interface by editing /etc/network/interfaces to include:
allow-hotplug eth1
iface eth1 inet manual
For wireless, make sure /etc/network/interfaces has a wireless network entry such as:
allow-hotplug wlan0
iface wlan0 inet manual
wpa-conf /etc/wpa_supplicant/wpa_supplicant.conf
If you are using wpa_supplicant and add a network entry for the iPhone's hotspot in /etc/wpa_supplicant/wpa_supplicant.conf:
network={
ssid="Banana Phone"
psk="ring ring ring"
key_mgmt=WPA-PSK
id_str="banana"
priority=3
}
The ssid should be the name of the phone from Settings -> General -> About -> Name and the password should come from the personal hotspot screen.
Now start the personal hotspot on your phone. The pi should automatically connect when connected by a usb to lighting cable or using wifi. After connecting, the pi should be assigned an ip somewhere in 172.20.10.x. You can run ifconfig on the pi to figure out which one. (I believe that you should be able to define a static ip here but haven't messed around with that yet)
From there, you can connect another computer to the hotspot and ssh into the pi using the 172.20.10.x ip or even ssh directly from the phone.
In my personal testing, latency over lightning is consistently low and I've used this on both a Raspberry Pi Two and Raspberry Pi Zero for streaming realtime mjpeg video from two cameras to a VR headset. In this scheme, the network is a fairly small source of the 100ms or so latency. The experience is not Vive quality of course, but it is still usable and the iPhone + Pi combo provides lots of fun hacking opportunities
It's possible to do this with Mfi.You can run usbmuxd service on your Raspberry Pi. The usbmuxd will transfer the USB data into socket packets. Your iOS App also need to implement the same protocol to rx/tx the data from/to your Raspberry Pi.
David House has already made this work. https://github.com/davidahouse/PiTalk
We manufacture a new accessory for iPad/iPhone which should transfer commands to the iPad. We like to use UART (through a certain Apple-protocol called Lingo). My research shows that I can only use USB (30PIN Connector) and custom protocols.
Question:
Is there any way to use UART to connect to the iPad accessory from APP side?
If the protocol is implemented in UART, we should be able to move it to USB, if it's not available to my App via USB.
My main guess is that the UART commands & access are protocols reserved to the iPhone OS and not available to Apps. Certain UART commands also include settings for volumes and Audio re-routing etc, so I guess that's secured.
Without jailbreak, you will not be able to access UART on iPad/iPod/iPhone as a normal developer. If you need access to the serial port or USB, you need to join Apple's MFi ("Made for iPhone") program and you will get full access to all relevant information. Unfortunately, you'll have to convince Apple that you're doing serious business and have a high volume manufacturing facility at hand (see also this thread).