Bluetooth low energy shield not working?

[nikhil]

Hi,

I setup my BLE shield and uploaded the sample code from http://tiny-circuits.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/BGLib_stub_slave_rev2.zip onto the TinyDuino. The LED on it is flashing green about once every second, which according to the code means that it is advertising. However here starts my problem - none of my devices can see the BLE shield. I scanned for bluetooth devices using my laptop and samsung S4 phone - neither see it. I would have thought this should be pretty straight forward, but I am a BLE and Arduino novice.

To set this up, I stacked the TinyDuino, the BLE shield one on top of the other. I topped the stack off with a proto board where I connected a 3V supply between VBatt and GND. Prior to this I had uploaded the demo code onto the TinyDuino. The system is being powered by a 3V DC power supply.

Nikhil

[LtMerlin]

Same problem here... have the bluetooth LE rev 2 board, uploaded the sketch successfully from the learn section. Status led blinks but i can't discover the device...
Any ideas or tutorials?

[nikhil]

I have not figured this out as yet - I drifted onto something else but hope to come back soon. However, here are somethings that I found out in the meantime that may help:

1) Samsung Galaxy S4's BTLE does not work. There is a huge thread about this on their forums. However there appears to be a Samsung BTLE SDK that maybe worth trying. I however do not know whether the problems people were reporting were also present when using the Samsung SDK, though I speculate that is not the case as that would be totally brain dead on Samsungs part.
2) Apparently the phone to do BTLE work with is the iPhone. If you look virtually none of the commercially available BTLE devices support android or atleast support android out of the door. That is telling. But having said that I was not able to get an iOS device detect the TinyDuino BTLE either.
3) Apparently though people have got BTLE + "Arduino compatible" to work on iOS. Check out the RFDuino site - there were some code samples etc. there. Now while those will likely not work with TinyDuino out of the box, it maybe worth looking at to see if there is something obviously wrong that you are doing, esp on the phone side.
4) The other test that I am going to do is try and see if I can get one TinyDuino to talk to another one. I bought another TinyDuino + BTLE module to try that but have not as yet - <gripe gripe>kind of sucks though that I had to buy another module to see if TinyDuino works in the first place.</gripe gripe>

TinyDuino team - how do we know whether this works? What is your hello world test that we can use as a starting point. You folks have been rather quiet on this issue.

[bickster]

I'm having the same issue.  I'm powering my TinyDuino with the mini usb.  The Bluetooth LE device boots and reports back -

###   system_boot: { major: FF, minor: 5000, patch: 4953, build: 5220, ll_version: 4156, protocol_version: 1, hw: 10 }

BUT I can't get another other device to discover it.  I've tried using my iPhone 5, MacBook Pro, and a Windows 7 PC.   I read that with rev1 the device would not be discoverable if powering with mini usb.  Does rev2 have this issue as well?

Thanks,
-chris

[TinyCircuits]

One of the big issues is that a BT Low Energy devices are not discoverable with the standard BT tools on most systems, namely iOS.  You need a third party utility to discover these sorts of devices, see the link below at Bluegiga (the manufacturer of the BLE112 module) about how to discover these:

https://bluegiga.zendesk.com/entries/23007217--TROUBLESHOOTING-Unable-to-discover-BLE112-in-iOS-device-s-Bluetooth-Settings-page

We have confirmed that the code on the learn site does work with an iPhone 5 to be able to discover it, using one of the apps shown on this page.  We also have a sample based on Jeff Rowbergs scanner app to allow the Bluetooth LE TinyShield to listen and discover other devices.  That being said I am sorry about the lack of code and docs for this board, we do plan on creating some additional content / sample apps.  If anyone is interested in doing some of this work (like iPhone sample apps / Arduino sample code), we will pay for the effort, just contact me at kburns@tiny-circuits.com to discuss.

Thanks,

Ken
TinyCircuits

[bickster]

Thanks.  I got the device to be discovered on my Windows 7 and on my Android tablet without any additional software.  There are other apps for Android similar to the one for the iPhone that gives you more information about the device that I found helpful.

-chris

[projectfungus]

has anybody put together a sample sketch which uses the TinyDuino BT LE shield and an Android phone?

if so, i'd like to see this, :-)

PF

[subu]

I am unable to access http://tiny-circuits.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/BGLib_stub_slave_rev2.zip

can you please email the same to me on s.v.iyer84@gmail.com

Hi,

I setup my BLE shield and uploaded the sample code from http://tiny-circuits.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/BGLib_stub_slave_rev2.zip onto the TinyDuino. The LED on it is flashing green about once every second, which according to the code means that it is advertising. However here starts my problem - none of my devices can see the BLE shield. I scanned for bluetooth devices using my laptop and samsung S4 phone - neither see it. I would have thought this should be pretty straight forward, but I am a BLE and Arduino novice.

To set this up, I stacked the TinyDuino, the BLE shield one on top of the other. I topped the stack off with a proto board where I connected a 3V supply between VBatt and GND. Prior to this I had uploaded the demo code onto the TinyDuino. The system is being powered by a 3V DC power supply.

Nikhil