iOS support for Amp'ed RF Technology BT43H

[milanboric]

Hello,
I am trying to use Amp'ed RF Technology BT43H dual mode Bluetooth it supports BLE and clasic mode (http://www.ampedrftech.com/products.php?product=BT43). I am trying to setup your chat example, on android it is running out of the box, on IOS it is not.
On the phone i can see and pair BT device easy, from the plugin when calling bluetoothSerial.list() i get an empty list (no devices) its the same if BT is paired and if not.

I have tried to set my device UUID from BLEDefines.h as adafruit and others, Then tried to add my device's UUID to same file as a new service but no luck.

Can you please help me to make it work.

[don]

Android uses Bluetooth Classic so it requires pairing between your phone and the device.

iOS uses Bluetooth Low Energy, so you don't need to pair the device. iOS will require code modifications. Start with BLEDefines. You need to add the UUIDs for the Amp'ed UART or SPP service for Bluetooth low energy. (This is different than the UUID of your device.) Amp'ed should provide documentation for their UART service. I'd expect something like Laird or Nordic.

If you find the documentation for the service, I can point you in the right direction.

[sonukapoor]

Hi Don,

First of all thank you so much for providing the add-on. It really helped me a lot to get started.
I have the same issue on iOS. Should we drop the BLEDDefines file into the project and redeploy?

Thanks

[don]

Add your UUIDs to BLEDefines.h
https://github.com/don/BluetoothSerial/blob/6f48395a3296c48233a1722b4582c9d3f460dd38/src/ios/BLEDefines.h

Add your service to the discovery filter

BluetoothSerial/src/ios/BLE.m

Line 210 in 6f48395

redBearLabsServiceUUID = [CBUUID UUIDWithString:@RBL_SERVICE_UUID];

Process your characteristics

BluetoothSerial/src/ios/BLE.m

Line 527 in 6f48395

if ([service.UUID isEqual:redBearLabsServiceUUID]) {

You might need a conditional here, depending if your characteristic is write or writeWithoutResponse

BluetoothSerial/src/ios/BLE.m

Line 179 in 6f48395

if ([serviceUUID isEqual:blueGigaServiceUUID]) {

Once you get this working, send a pull request so it can be in the next release.

[sonukapoor]

Thanks a lot for providing the steps. I will try to get this done. I am new to iOS dev, so it may take longer and I may get back to you if I need more help. I hope that is OK.

[sonukapoor]

Hi Don,

So I need to add the UUID of my iPad/iPod/iPhone device right?

[don]

@sonukapoor No not the UUID of your device. Bluetooth has lots of UUIDs.

You need to add the UUID of the UART service that the Amp'ed device provides. There should be some Amp'ed documentation about a UART or SPP like service that they provide for their BLE devices. You could reverse engineer the service and characteristic UUIDs but it's better to get the documentation. Someone from Amp'ed should be able to provide this for you. If you get the documentation, I can help you figure out what to add.

[sonukapoor]

@don I think I may have replied to the wrong thread. Basically I am new to iOS and BlueTooth.
I am trying to connect my iPad to my bluetooth devices from TSL. It works fine on Android, but on iOS it just doesn't return a list of devices. Here is the device I am using: http://www.tsl.uk.com/products/1128-bluetooth-handheld-uhf-rfid-reader/. Please let me know if you would like me to open a new issue instead. Thanks again.

[don]

@sonukapoor please create a new issue for this...

[milanboric]

@don I have been in contact with Amp'ed and have read documentation which is publicly available. Product page is http://www.ampedrftech.com/products.php?product=BT43 and this one is aimed at ios http://www.ampedrftech.com/guides/BLE_ConnectionGuide.pdf. I found service UUID and it can be set manually to any value, but i did not find UUID's for RX and TX. They are not too happy to provide help i got eventually the source code of their demo app and it does not work unfortunately.
I am a bit confused i know about device UUID (you told me i need RX/TX UUID's which i do not have) i tried already to set this device UUID. But what about app id i see in documentation that there is iAPAppID, IAPProtocolStrMain, IAPProtocolStrAlt i tried also to set app id to match with what is written to device but no luck still.
I will write more if i manage to get more information from them.

[don]

@milanboric that's too bad they're not willing to work with you.

Try installing Light Blue on your iOS device. Connect to the BT43H and select the service. It should list the characteristics. Ideally there is a TX and RX characteristic. Some manufacturers like ConnectBlue/uBlox use one FIFO characteristic for TX and TX and another characteristic for credits.

Post a screenshot of the service info from LightBlue here.

[simoor]

Here is a printscreen what you see when scanning an Amp'ed BT43H device.

[simoor]

@don is 26CC3F... the service ID I need to use? Tried it, but got no devices at all when using the list function?!

[don]

@simoor This is a tricky problem. Normally I'd like to use the manufacturer's documentation about their UART service. Some dev boards are finicky and need settings just right before the BLE UART works. Working sample code from the manufacturer is also helpful. Unfortunately I think you're stuck reverse engineering this.

If there's only the one service, 26CC3FC0-6241-F5B4-5347-63A3097F6764, that's a good place to start. As for the 5 characteristics? I'm not sure what they mean. Conceptually for UART you'll have a service with 2 characteristics. One for transmit (TX) and another for receive (RX). The Nordic UART service works like this. Other hardware like BlueGiga uses one characteristic for both transmit and receive. The BF8796F1-64F7-70B5-1E41-09BB46D79100 characteristic has read, write and notify so it could be both TX and RX? If you're unlucky it will work more like the ConnectBlue/uBlox hardware and you'll need to deal with a data credit characteristic too. See this code for one approach to handling credits.

You might be better off starting with my generic BLE plugin rather than this plugin since you can use JavaScript to mess with the service and characteristics, rather than modifying ObjectiveC. Once you know how the UART service works, it's easy to update this plugin to handle the characteristics.