I am trying to establish a bluetooth connection between a Windows CE handheld device(A bank card reader) and iPhone. I want to make data transfer betweeen the two. I have read that prior to IOS 6.0 this was not possible. But with IOS 6.0 I can use core bluetooth to establish a connection.
I would like to know whether the handheld devices bluetooth should be of certain spec to make it work with IOS devices? Or are there any restriction fro any bluetooth device to communicate with an IOS device?
I have read here that the device should be Bluetooth LE. How can I detect whether my handheld device is bluetooth LE?
Thanks
It would be nice if you would provide more information about this Windows CE device.
Just search for the specs of it. If it supports Bluetooth 4.0 LE you have to look if it specifies any of the known profiles. If not the manufacturer may have implemented an own profile to provide certain services and characteristics.
If this is not the case, there is no possibility to establish a connection over CoreBluetooth.
But if its a bank card reader I can't imagine, that it supports BLE.
If the device just supports Bluetooth 2.x you can only connect via the External Accessories Framework. But this only works if the manufacturer bought the MFi (Made for iPod) license and implemented the required specs into the hardware (only then the device is "MFi approved").
How to discover non-apple compliant Bluetooth devices with iPhone..???
I have made an app where i need to detect non- apple compliant Bluetooth car kit with my iPhone.i have to detect Bluetooth devices paired with my iPhone when car kit comes in range i have to call a method. Unable to detect device using external accessory framework. so any help regarding this will be appreciable.Thanks in advance
I am not from iPhone but i think Bluetooth communication to external devices for non-jailbroken iOS devices is restricted to MFi-compliant Bluetooth hardware.
i'm trying to implement an application using a Bluetooth 4.0 module, and I wonder if using this application with an Iphone 3GS containing a simple Bluetooth 2.1 EDR module is going to enable me take advantage of the the low energy in my 4.0 module.
Thank you for your answers
Bluetooth 4.0 is the standard, which includes both classical Bluetooth Basic Rate/Enhanced Data Rate (BR/EDR) and Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE, or Bluetooth Smart, which is a marketing name).
Compatibility depends on the the device and Bluetooth chip e.g. is it a BR/EDR only chip (Bluetooth 3.0), a BLE only chip or a dual-mode chip capable of both BR/EDR and BLE. A dual-mode chip can (until 4.1, at least) only operates in either BR/EDR or BLE mode for any given connection.
A dual mode chip, certified as Bluetooth 4.0, can and should be able to connect to a Bluetooth 2.1 chip, in BR/EDR mode.
A Bluetooth BLE (Bluetooth Smart) chip will not be able to.
First, you must clearly determine if your Bluetooth 4.0 module is only capable of BLE.
According to Bluetooth 4.0 (ie BLE), there are two kinds of devices
1) A dual mode device , which support BR/EDR , ie Bluetooth 2.1 or 3.0 and same time it support Bluetooth 4.0
2) A BLE only device, which supports only Bluetooth 4.0
In general, sensors which supposed to be work in coin cell battery will be designed with BLE chipset and mobile devices will be designed with Dual mode chipset. So the mobile device can have interoperability with other BR/EDR device as well as it can connect and fetch data from sensors.
More over a BLE device can not communicate with a classic Bluetooth device[ BR/EDR or Bluetooth 2.1 device]
No of coures not, how can a Bluetooth 2.1 magically turn into a bluetooth 4 module.
If you apps requires Bluetooth 4.0 than add it to the Required device capabilities in the info.plist. Add bluetooth-le to the Required device capabilities.
Bluetooth 4.0 in low energy mode is actually quite different from what people consider classical Bluetooth. While Bluetooth 4.0 in the iPhone is backwards compatible with Bluetooth 2.1, Bluetooth low energy in general (or Bluetooth Smart as it is also known) is not backwards compatible.
The corebluetooth framework specifies functionality with Bluetooth low energy (4.0) and is only available with newer iPads and iPhone 4S.
You cannot by any means work with Bluetooth 4.0 devices using an older iOS device.
Bluetooth Low energy only chip cannot communicate with Classic BR/EDR Chips.
4.0 Bluetooth specification is an umbrella specification that contains both BLE and BR/EDR.
A Dual Mode chip contains BLE as well as BR/EDR capability. Of course, Host also should be capable of dual mode strictly speaking. Dual mode chips, obviously can communicate with both kinds of chips.
I really searched on this topic for a while now. Especially when iOS 3 was the latest software version on the iPhone.
I wonder if there is a possibility to connect the iPhone to an external device via Bluetooth using the SDK and retrieve measured data?
Thanks for your help!
Greeting!
mary
If the Bluetooth device can masquerade as a Bluetooth keyboard, then it can send data to an iOS device encoded as keystrokes.
If the Bluetooth device is or can masquerade as a headset, then it might be able to send data encoded by an audio modulation scheme, such as FSK. A matching modem/codec will need to be running in the iOS app.
For the newest iOS devices (4S) you can use the new Bluetooth LE protocol to send data (older Bluetooth data communication protocols are not available to apps unless you are in Apple's NDA MFi program).
You have to look into the MFi Program by apple since you want your devices communicating. It provides support on using an external accessory with your iPhone, though you have to register/pay for it.
in my application i'm trying to turn on a bluetooth device from the iphone. The bluetooth device is one of those you put in your ear to talk without holding the phone. I wonder if it's possible to turn on the bluetooth wirelessly from my application.
No, because the bluetooth device would have to be ON to receive the signal to turn ON.
The user manages paired bluetooth devices. If you just need input, see: Can the iPhone 3.0 SDK provide full access to Bluetooth devices (headsets)?.