How do I implement notification in BLE?
I have a smartphone, and every hour it will send notification to all nearby BLE devices (smartwatch, RFduino, etc) for time synchronization purpose.
Other devices are server now (since it provides data), and smartphone is the client that collect the data.
Could I piggyback into the advertisement packages? For example, the smartphone always broadcast an advertisement packet to annoucement its presence (that's how other devices can find it). Can I modify that packet to be a time sync?
In order to send notifications or advertisements, your smartphone has to act as a server, which also means that in order to be able to receive notifications or scan for advertisements, your peripheral devices must act as clients.
This can be a bit tricky, because if two devices act as client and server, they may not simultaneously fulfil the other role. You need to switch roles whenever needed, which is an open field for all kinds of problems.
Also, I am not convinced that it is really the optimal choice to let the smartphone regularly notify all devices in the vicinity. Each of the devices that wants to receive the notification has to be connected with the device in order to receive the notification, and this connection has to be already active when the notification is sent in order to really get the correct time. So all these devices need to connect in advance to the expected notification time, and hold up the connection until the notification has come.
It might be better to just advertise the current time, but remember that you can't connect to the smartphone as a server while it is advertising, because the link layer may not be in scanning and advertising mode at the same time, and you may also not be connected when advertising for a similar reason.
If you want to do it that way, you can include the time information in the advertising data. See the Supplement to the Bluetooth Core Specification v6, Part A for further information on the structure of the advertising data. You could put it in the manufacturer specific data.
However, another option would be to write the time directly to the device using a write request. You can define your own service and characteristics. You can include a "time synch necessary" information in the advertisement data of the servers, and when the smartphone evaluates the advertisement, it can connect to the corresponding device and send the time directly.
The advantage of this procedure is that time is only updated if you really need it on the device, and that you do not have to switch client/server roles, because the device in server role may advertise as normal, and the smartphone can always stay in client role.
Related
I have a BLE device that doesn't respond to SCAN_REQ and am working it out with the vendor independently per https://github.com/espressif/esp-idf/issues/10660.
When I use Nordic nRD Connect iphone app as a client I can see that device in the scan list and can connect to it. However, when I use a different client, a python Windows one, that client doesn't show the device in its scan list and doesn't connect to it if I specify the exact address.
My question is, are BLE 4 devices required to respond to SCAN_REQ requests to be discoverable and connectable or is it just optional response to provide additional advertisement data?
EDIT, I believe that Emil's answer below (thanks) refers to this quote
Yes, it's required to reply with a scan response. That is defined in Bluetooth Core v5.3, Vol 6 Part B (Link Layer), section 4.4.2.3, using the word "shall".
There is one exception though. There is a Filter Accept List in the controller which can contain addresses of centrals allowed to scan and/or connect. There are four combinations the host can set (advertising filter policy) that control if this list shall be used for filtering incoming SCAN_REQ and CONNECT_IND packets, respectively. If you don't use this filtering mechanism, then the device must send a scan response to every scan request.
There are two possible approaches to scanning—Passive Scanning or Active Scanning.
Passive Scanning is when Scanners receive advertising packets and process the contents.
In the case of Active Scanning, however, a device may decide it wants to know more about an advertising device and respond to the initial advertising packet by sending a Scan Request GAP protocol data unit (PDU). This basically means ‘Tell me more.’ The device receiving the Scan Request can send back a Scan Response PDU with more information, once again in the form of a collection of AD types.
The above has been extracted from: https://www.bluetooth.com/blog/advertising-works-part-1/ [the emphasis mine].
I am planning to develop a small project with a NRF52 (or other BLE chip if that'd matter). Preliminary, I would like to know, if I can broadcast data without "abusing" the advertising bytes?
Scenario: Two smartphones connect with my device and they enable some notify-characteristic over which i would like to receive data with a potentially high frequency (up to 100Hz maybe) on both devices. (I know 100Hz is already close to the minimum 7,5ms or so that ble supports... just to say i wanna reach that limit basically and be as fast as possible with receiving)
So: if I connect two central devices, will they receive the same notify signal or will I have to send one for each central device, essentially lowering the max frequency at which i can receive data?
In the latter case, is the best way to broadcast ble data to multiple devices via the advertising bytes?
Kind regards, have a good one
When you use GATT notifications over BLE, the notifications are individual per connection. So if you want to send the same notification to two connected clients, the data is duplicated over the air. In general, all GATT traffic is individual per connection.
If you send one packet per 10 ms to two devices, that should be fine. Note though if one packet is lost, it will be resent during the next connection event and hence then two packes will be sent to that device (assuming you produce an additional packet after 10 ms as usual).
You can use advertising instead to broadcast data. Every device that scans can see your data. Data you send in ADV_IND can be seen by an unlimited amount of scanners.
If it's better to use advertisements or GATT to send data to multiple devices depends on a lot of factors. You should experiment what works best for you.
I am working on Android BLE as a peripheral connected to a custom device that runs Nordic NRF51 as a central. The project requires Android peripheral to connect to two NRF51 central devices.
Android is advertising two different Advertisement UUIDs one for left and other for right Nordic NRF51 devices. Ideally, I would like to have both Nordic Centrals to connect to the Android at the same time.
I have two main issues.
First issue. Android can get both connections fine. The problem occurs when Android sending notification or Android sending reply back as result of Write Request from the central. When both Centrals are connected, often notification nor the send reply works. I confirmed that the Nordic central does not receive the notification nor the reply. Does anyone have experiences in Android as a Peripheral supporting multiple connections at the same time? I have tried two BluetoothGattServer instances (one for each device) as well as one instance of BluetoothGattServer and based on the connected device, I can tell which Central the event if for and handle it correctly. It is sending notification or send reply to Write Request that at times it does not get sent from Android. I am using synchronized methods on the GattServerCallback event handlers.
Second Issue. Due to the first issue, I am now only advertising one UUID at a time. The idea is to switch between two advertising UUIDs, thus have only one connection at time. The problem now is switch advertising. About 1 out 3 times, when I start advertising with first UUID with its name (LFDroid), it appears that it is actually advertising second UUID with its name (RTDroid) briefly (1 or 2 seonds) and then advertises what was requested. Note that second UUID advertising was stopped on previous switching. It almost looks like when I ask to advertise, it starts to advertise with the last advertised UUID and name and then quickly advertises what is requested. This now causes problem because both Nordic Centrals sees the advertisement and connects.
Any suggestions would be appreciated.
Say I have a BLE device that is both a server(has info) and a peripheral(needs to access outside info), that upon receiving or generating it's own data has to share with other Server/Peripherals in it's vicinity.
Would it be beneficial that I only attempt to connect to the devices through BLE when their is data to be transfered "even though it periodically connects to each server sequentially to see if it can" or would it be better to keep connections simultaneously use callbacks to determine when connected and simply transfer data when required to(through from what i understand the devices that I use can only process on gatt operation at a time meaning having 4 connections to quickly transfer data is irrelevant).
In other words is it beneficial to continually reconnect and disconnect a peripheral and server or simply have a connection to as many servers as I need(even though apparently I can only perform one gatt operation at a time i.e 1 characteristic read/wright).
balanced requirements.
If possible, instead of reading to see if there's data available, I would stay in connection with the devices and have them use Bluetooth notifications to communicate data when it becomes available.
Alternatively you could consider having the Peripherals advertise only when they have data to invite the Central mode device to connect. It would need to be periodically scanning to detect this however.
Advantages/disadvantages depend on your priorities and the nature of the two types of device.
FYI you're mixing terminology a little btw. When discovering devices you have a GAP Peripheral which advertises and a GAP Central which scans. After the Central connects to the Peripheral connect you have a GATT Client and a GATT Server. Usually the GAP Peripheral becomes the GATT Server but it does not need to be this way. The GAP Peripheral can just as easily become the GATT Client. It's the GATT Server that has the state data in an attribute table in the form of Services, Characteristics and Descriptors.
Can a cell phone transmit SMS-CB (Short Messaging Service-Cell Broadcast) ?
If not, Can I get a device that can transmit SMS-CB messages ?
Else, Is there a good simulator that can simulate SMS-CB transmission and receiving mobile phones ?
Thank You
NOTE: Cell Broadcast (SMS-CB) is designed for simultaneous delivery of messages to multiple users in a specified area. For example, information such as Location, Tower name, Ads or Emergency messages can be transmitted.
Technically, the SMS-CB messages originate at a device called "Cell Broadcast Centre (CBC)", which is part of the network operators equipment. It sends the SMS-CB through the Base Station Controller (BSC). This cannot be done over the air, it is something which happens inside the mobile operators network. It would probably be too much to explain all GSM/3G/UMTS network components here, you might want to read up on mobile network architecture.
So the simple answer is no, a handset (mobile phone) cannot directly send SMS-CB messages.
Now the question is, how to tell the CBC to send an SMS-CB to some network cells. There exist some standardized interfaces for that, which are used for emergency alerting, e.g. the Commercial Mobile Alert System (CMAS) in the US. If these interfaces are designed sensibly, they cannot be abused by just about anyone using a mobile handset. But I would not be surprised if there were security gaps in some operator's networks which would allow unauthorized parties to send SMS-CB, e.g. via insecure Internet/SS7 gateways. But that is wild speculation. Normally, it should not be possible to send unauthorized SMS-CB from outside of the operator's network.