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connecting_to_ble_device_on_intel_edison.md

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Azure IoT Gateway - Connecting to a Bluetooth Low Energy device on the Intel Edison

Overview

As it stands today, the Bluetooth LE (BLE) module that the Azure IoT Gateway SDK ships with does not support discovery of BLE devices. This is however on the product roadmap. In the meantime, the BLE module is perfectly usable for prototyping solutions by performing some preparatory work as documented here.

Prerequisites

Currently, the Azure IoT Gateway SDK supports communicating with BLE devices only on Linux. Here's what you'll need to do get your Intel Edison board setup:

  1. Setup your Intel Edison board using instructions as documented for the Azure IoT Hub Device SDK. You'll need to follow along only up till the section titled "Installing Git on your Intel Edison".

  2. The latest firmware version for the Edison supports the BlueZ version needed to run the Azure IoT Gateway BLE module. To confirm that the version of BlueZ is now 5.37, running the following command should cause it to print the string 5.37 to the terminal.

    bluetoothctl --version

  3. Unblock bluetooth.

    rfkill unblock bluetooth

Connecting your BLE device

Here are the steps to be performed in order to discover and connect to a BLE device:

  1. Run bluetoothctl. You should see output that looks like this:

    root@edison:~# bluetoothctl
[NEW] Controller 98:4F:EE:03:BC:6B edison [default]
[bluetooth]# _

  2. You should find yourself inside the interactive bluetooth shell. Ensure that the bluetooth controller is powered on:

    [bluetooth]# power on
Changing power on succeeded

  3. Start scanning for BLE devices:

    [bluetooth]# scan on
Discovery started
[CHG] Controller 98:4F:EE:03:BC:6B Discovering: yes

  4. Now switch your device into the mode that will cause it to broadcast BLE advertisement packets. Eventually you should see your device being listed by bluetoothctl.

    [NEW] Device B0:B4:48:B9:27:82 CC2650 SensorTag
[CHG] Device B0:B4:48:B9:27:82 TxPower: 0

  5. Turn off scanning for bluetooth devices:

    [bluetooth]# scan off
[CHG] Device B0:B4:48:B9:27:82 TxPower is nil
[CHG] Device B0:B4:48:B9:27:82 RSSI is nil
[CHG] Controller 98:4F:EE:03:BC:6B Discovering: no
Discovery stopped
[bluetooth]# _

  6. Connect to your BLE device:

    [bluetooth]# connect B0:B4:48:B9:27:82
Attempting to connect to B0:B4:48:B9:27:82
[CHG] Device B0:B4:48:B9:27:82 Connected: yes
Connection successful
[CC2650 SensorTag]# _

  7. After connecting, bluetoothctl might proceed to list the GATT characteristics and attributes supported by your BLE device. Inspect the characteristics it discovered by running list-attributes:

    [CC2650 SensorTag]# list-attributes
Primary Service
        /org/bluez/hci0/dev_B0_B4_48_B9_27_82/service000c
        Device Information
Characteristic
        /org/bluez/hci0/dev_B0_B4_48_B9_27_82/service000c/char000d
        System ID
Characteristic
        /org/bluez/hci0/dev_B0_B4_48_B9_27_82/service000c/char000f
        Model Number String

    The full output has not been shown above - the output has been truncated after the enumeration of the first 3 GATT attribute rows.

  8. Now you can proceed to disconnect from the device:

    [CC2650 SensorTag]# disconnect B0:B4:48:B9:27:82
Attempting to disconnect from B0:B4:48:B9:27:82
Successful disconnected
[CHG] Device B0:B4:48:B9:27:82 Connected: no
[bluetooth]# _

That's it. Now you're fully setup to build and run the BLE gateway module with your BLE device.