I have built an iOS app that uses corebluetooth, and an android app that starts avertisement via GATT server.
So Android devices only discover other androids and iOS devices.
And iOS devices discovers other iOS' only.
The question is how to advertise data from android so iOS devices can discover it, or is there any way for iOS device to scan regular bluetooth devices except for MFi program?
if you had any experience with connecting these two OS via bluetooth, please let me know the ways on how to do it.
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I am working on a mobile app that connects to accessories over BLE. The app runs on Android as well as iOS.
I have a Raspberry Pi that is running a BLE server app.
When my Android app tries to connect to Pi over BLE, the connectivity just fails. I see a system notification popping up that Bluetooth connection failed because of an invalid pin or passkey.
However, my iOS app seems to connect just fine. There is no PIN or passkey requested.
I have tried Android testing with Pixel 2 as well as Pixel 3. The OS version is 10.
My Android app used to work fine until a few months ago. I feel it must be a recent change in Android OS.
I am wondering if anyone else has seen such a problem. Thanks.
After days of research and trial and error my colleagues and I have to hope that the StackOverflow community has a working solution.
We got an Android Smartwatch. We developed an app which acts as the BLE central. The App shows a QR-Code encoding an UUID which is unique for every Smartwatch. While showing that QR code it's actively scanning for a device advertising a service with that UUID.
We also developed an iOS app which can scan that QR code and start advertising with the service UUID it received. The Android Smartwatch then connects very quickly to the iOS device.
One purpose of the Smartwatch is to show push notifications from the iOS device. So when the connection is successfully established, the Smartwatch-App subscribes to the ANCS Data Source and Notification Source characteristics. This initiates "Just Works" pairing, so you just have to click on "Pair" on the iOS device. Afterwards you have to allow that iOS notifications are shared to the Smartwatch and then the Smartwatch successfully receives notifications.
ANCS is also the reason why the iOS device MUST BE in the peripheral role.
Until here everything works fine.
When the user leaves the bluetooth range or dis- and enables bluetooth on the iOS device, an automatic reconnect should be triggered. It DOES reconnect when the iOS app is in foreground. Unfortunately it DOES NOT work when the iOS-App is in background. This is probably related to the fact, that the iOS device is not advertising with the required UUID when the app is in background as described in the CoreBluetooth documentation:
All service UUIDs contained in the value of the CBAdvertisementDataServiceUUIDsKey advertisement key are placed in a special “overflow” area; they can be discovered only by an iOS device that is explicitly scanning for them.
We tried many different ways to reconnect from the Android Smartwatch to iOS. From my understanding it should be working when making the first connectGatt with autoConnect=false and when the connection is lost, calling connectGatt on the lost device with autoConnect=true, but it never reconnects. At least not within 15 minutes. Scanning again also wouldn't work, as the UUID is not advertised in background anymore.
We also tried to additionally let the Android device act as peripheral, so the iOS can connect to it. After connecting we wrote data to an "INITIATE_ANCS"-characteristic and let the Android device call connectGatt on the device which was passed to onCharacteristicWrite. This led to interesting behavior:
- The connection was working, we could read a Smartwatch-Characteristic from iOS.
- When subscribing to the ANCS characteristics, it initiated pairing. But instead of "Just Works" pairing it showed a 6-digit code on the iOS device which we had to type onto the Smartwatch.
- The pairing was inititated on every new connect and it always created a new device in the systems device managers on both Android and iOS.
- The pairing WAS NOT inititated when the iOS app was in background.
We really did a thorough research and couldn't find a solution. Did we understand something wrong on how BLE for iOS and Android works? We really hope to find an expert here that has the knowledge what has to be done to make the reconnect work.
Edit:
The Android device is running on Android 5.1.1 and currently it's no option to update.
The iOS testing device is running iOS 13.3 and it should be compatible with iOS 13+
I'm wondering whether or not we can make a specific BLE peripheral device with having this ability to be supported by iOS/Android for automatic scanning for automatic reconnecting, i.e without using any extra app.
I think some standard BLE accessory devices (like Heart sensor) are already known by smartphones, so after first-time pairing, the smartphone's OS itself will scan for finding them again automatically for re-connecting each time when the connection gets lost.
Yes. If the device is a HID device then the system will auto connect to the device until you disable it in Android and unpair it in iOS.
But what's the purpose if you don't have an app?
For example, if there is a gaming console (i.e PlayStation) connected to HDMI input in a TV with Android TV. Then, is it possible to record the video going through this HDMI input with a 3rd party app?
In my question I'm referring to Android's TV input framework
Thanks for the helpers.
The TV Input Framework docs mentions that it supports TV recording APIs.
DVR
For devices on Android 7.0 and above, the TV App must support the
Android framework TV recording
APIs,
to support, list, and play recorded programs.
This allows device manufacturers to plug their DVR subsystems into TIF
and dramatically reduce the integration effort it takes to enable or
integrate DVR functionality on a TV device. It also enables third
parties to provide aftermarket DVR systems that can be plugged into an
Android TV device.
In addition to recording live content, the TV App also handles
resource conflict. For example, if the device has two tuners, it can
record two programs at the same time. If the user asks to record
three, the TV App must handle the conflict and should either surface a
notification or request that the user schedules a priority for these
requests.
However I don't have code samples for you as I haven't experimented with this yet.
Another approach would be to use the MediaProjection API and record this with a MediaRecorder. Jake Wharton's app Telecine follows this approach and you can find the source code on GitHub.
The benefit is that these APIs were introduced with Lollipop, so you can use them on all Android TV devices. However I just started experimenting with Android TV, so I can not tell from personal experiences.
I am developing an Android app which can broadcast advertisements using Bluetooth Low Energy APIs(Implemented in Android 5.0 with Nexus 6 & Nexus 9). I am putting my Nexus 9 in peripheral mode & it is broadcasting advertisements.
My question here is:
"Can every other android device with OS having Android 4.3 or greater receive advertisements without installing any third-party apps?"
I'm planning to develop Android app for peripheral mode only, but not for central mode for client devices.
Android 4.3 to 4.4 - Central mode(Device can receive advertisements)
Android 5.0 - Device can work in both central & peripheral mode.(can broadcast as well as receive advertisements).
Is it possible in any version of Android?
The answer is NO. There is no system tools / stock app that receive BLE advertisement (and display it out). You have to make it your own / use the existing third party app to achieve that.