I want to develop an application for the iPhone 4GS that supports Bluetooth 4.
The application would continually listen to the data transmitted by a heart rate monitor over Bluetooth, and show information on a screen.
To achieve this, the application would have to listen to the data even when it's not the active foreground application.
Like Android, is it possible to silently listen to Bluetooth events on an iPhone as a background service?
I can't determine exactly what you're asking, but here are two tutorials for incorporating Bluetooth in iOS apps:
iPhone Bluetooth Programming
iOS Bluetooth Programming - Getting devices to see each other
Also, here is Apple's list of Supported Bluetooth profiles.
You won't find serial port profile (SPP) in iOS devices if you're looking for that.
So question about using it in the background would seem irrelevant.
You could use 'old style' FSK modem over BT audio an then decode the signal in
code. On the other hand you should consider going WiFi. Microchips MRF24WB0MA/RM for
example supports adhoc/infrastructure netwroks and it also has Bonjour support.
Related
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.
After searching on Google, I found that people say it's only possible to connect an iOS device with a non iOS device with the 'MFi program'. Is that true?
My project is mainly focused on sending and receiving information with the Arduino device via Bluetooth directly.
Is communication between iOS and non iOS devices without jailbreak possible? If yes, is there a reference?
(I viewed Stack Overflow question How can an iPhone access another non-iPhone device over wireless or Bluetooth?.)
As I stated in the above-linked question, general Bluetooth communication to external devices on non-jailbroken iOS devices is restricted to MFi-compliant Bluetooth hardware.
However, newer iOS devices (iPhone 4S, new iPad) are capable of Bluetooth 4.0 LE communication with external devices without the need for those devices to be MFi-compliant. This interaction is done through the new Core Bluetooth framework, which lets you send and receive arbitrary data to and from Bluetooth LE devices. This only works with those listed newer iOS devices, though.
Tim points out an interesting hack that you might be able to get away with in making your device appear like a Bluetooth HID keyboard. Devices like this barcode scanner have special modes to appear as HID devices to iOS. You might be able to pull something together based on this, but all data transfer will be one-way from your device, and it looks like this will require entering that data into text fields as if you had a keyboard connected.
Alasdair Alan's "iOS Sensor Apps with Arduino" is a good resource to look at. I've used Wifi with another microprocessor (mbed) but not sure about bluetooth. Alasdair is active on Twitter and he usually is kind enough to answer questions.
Has anybody succeeded in developing a bluetooth application on the iPhone that prints to a Bluetooth printer?
I have been investigating the feasibility of developing an iPhone application that could print to a Bluetooth-enabled printer. I've gone through the most of the postings in this thread and was confused by the mail exchanges.
As per my analysis:
Gamekit - can be used for bluetooth connectivity between iPhones and IPods ONLY
Bonjour - can be used for wi-fi connectivity between iPhones/IPods and bonjour-enabled printer
We can use an external accessory to connect to a third party Bluetooth-enabled printer provided the 3rd-party printer complies with the necessary regulations from Apple (registering for either “Made for iPod”/ “Works with iPhone”, and also customizing their printer with specific hardware/software, etc.)
Could someone please share their experiences?
You want their external accessory framework. Not GameKit. Happy coding!
The External Accessory framework provides support for communicating with external hardware connected to an iPhone OS–based device through the 30-pin dock connector or wirelessly using Bluetooth.
(This is exactly what you were looking for)
To detect and connect to external devices ExternalAccessoryFramework should be used.Me too developing an application for connecting iphone to other hardware devices via bluetooth .A'm facing the problem with the protocol.The protocol should be the hardware supported ones and the protocol should be given in the info plist file..
Happy coding.
You can want to try this Bluetooth printer, which is Apple MFI approved
http://www.bluebamboo.com/other_file/P25i%20Datasheet%20%28EN%29%20v1.0%2009-Oct-2011.pdf
I would bet that you would need to use Bonjour and Wi-Fi for this application. The bluetooth hardware is restricted to gameplay from what I've seen.
well i have sucsessfully accomplished bt printing on a customers I-phone both devices have to be in discovery mode to do so and then the combination wireless and bt will allow only photo printing though otherwise you will need an app
I'm trying to figure out if an iPhone can connect to another non-iPhone device over wireless or Bluetooth and have seen conflicting information. Much of what I've found was before version 3.0 of the SDK came out, when it certainly wasn't possible. Looking at Stack Overflow questions, like Can the iPhone 3.0 SDK provide full access to Bluetooth devices (headsets)? mention you can't connect to an arbitrary device unless if it's part of the "Works for iPhone" device. Do I need hardware that is part of this program?
Looking through the Apple documentation, Peer-to-Peer Connectivity, it mentions connecting two iPhones, not an iPhone to another Bluetooth device. Then there are articles like iPhone SDK focus: Bluetooth enhancements that includes this quote
...and with the newly-announced "standard support" should allow file transfer between the iPhone and a computer, as well as between nearby iPhones
Another Stack Overflow question, GameKit in iPhone SDK 3.0, mentions Bonjour, and the Apple documentation for Bonjour talks about connecting to Bonjour devices, but can an iPhone connect to any Bonjour device? Does it have to have a Wi-Fi connection, or can it use Bluetooth?
Even if I could use Bluetooth to connect to another device, it won't be available on first generation iPhones and iTouches, I believe. Is that correct? I'm thinking of an iPhone application that would need to communicate with other non-iPhone devices in the area, probably using Bluetooth, but possibly a direct wireless connection. What are the possibilities and limitations of this approach? Is it not possible to have an iPhone connect to an arbitrary Bluetooth device? Does the other device have to be on a wireless Bonjour network that? I'm trying to figure out if it's even possible for this to work or if it's not worth the effort.
The only way to communicate with other Bluetooth devices via the External Accessory framework in iPhone OS 3.0 is if they are in the Made for iPod accessory program. Even though they communicate through standard Bluetooth connections, accessories need special hardware in order to process the data stream coming from the iPhone / iPod touch. Unfortunately, this means that your idea of communicating with generic Bluetooth devices won't work on iPhone OS 3.0.
If the devices you want to talk to are Bonjour-discoverable via Wi-Fi, they don't need to be part of the Made for iPod program. However, that doesn't sound like your case.
Third-party developers in the near future may produce dongles that connect through the 30-pin dock port and give access to existing Bluetooth devices. If these developers opened up their communication protocol, that might enable your goal of communicating with these devices.
You can use NSStream for opening IPv4/IPv6 sockets on the iPhone. The devices to which you're connecting do not have to be iPhones or use Wi-Fi necessarily. Because of how network communication protocols are laid out, you simply don't have to care what kind of device your iPhone is communicating with.
Bonjour, on the other hand, uses NSStream internally. It's basically a nifty little wrapper which allows for auto-discovery. You need the Bonjour protocol installed on all devices which you want to participate in the auto-discovery process. There is even an implementation for Windows.
As part of the iPhone OS 3.0 SDK, Apple announced the ability to control hardware accessories through either Bluetooth or the dock connector. The dock connector supports standard protocols (that is, play, pause, etc.) as well as any custom protocols the developer wants to implement.
As far as connecting via Bluetooth, you can talk to other iPhones or other devices. For example, you can use stereo Bluetooth to connect compatible Bluetooth stereo headphones, car kits, or other accessories.
As far as what devices support Bluetooth communication, everything except the first generation iPod Touch should be okay.
See also Apple's page on iPhone OS accessories.
I'm new to developing applications for the iPhone and iPod touch. Is it possible to communicate directly between 2 devices in the same room by using WiFi or perhaps even BlueTooth on the iPhone?
I've seen a demo of a fire application where one iPhone "lights" other iPhone when they get close to each other. How is this accomplished?
The point of all this is that I am exploring the option of developing a game that you can play with another person in the same room.
The iPhone supports Bonjour based service discovery and several applications take advantage of this to do things like syncing with a PC on the same network. Explore the samples and guides in the iPhone SDK. WiTap and BonjourWeb are good examples to start with. NSNetServices and CFNetServices are the APIs you'll be dealing with for Bonjour
iPhone - iPhone communication can also be accomplished over bluetooth using GameKit.