Master Emulator random behaviour

[Leon Schmetz]

I am developing a windows application, using the MasterEmulator api. I am discovering BLE devices with scan parameter Active and Passive. The result is that most of the time data from the advertising packet is returned and sometimes the data from the scan response. Both advertising data contain (different) ManufacturerSpecificData.

I have searched in the forum and found Ole stating that it is not possible to have manufacturer data in both the advertising data and the scan response. (hope I interpreted this right).

However, the softdevice supports this and the Master Control Panel displays it consistently correct.

I expect the MasterEmulator api to return the scan response data when requesting Active scanning, and to return advertising data when requesting Passive scanning.

So testing this with a C# application shows that performing scanning Active and Passive scanning, one after the other in the same method, the results vary. Most of the time the advertising data is returned when Active scanning. And just repeating the Discover Devices with a button click, so without restarting the app, shows varying results.

Can someone explain or classify it as a bug or tell me how to get consistent behaviour?

Thank you.

[Leon Schmetz]

Ole,

It is a way to be compatible with one solution and open up a migration path to a new solution, or in other words to be compatible and also add custom extras. So it is important to get both data from advertising and scan response.

If the master emulator api is not for production, then how to implement a solution for hardware that does not have a ble device natively, but could work with a ble dongle and appropriate software?

[Ole Morten]

Currently there isn't any easy way to use any of our devices for making a USB dongle. There is a Central softdevice upcoming, but it isn't quite ready for general consumption yet. When it is, it would be possible to use this to build some kind of dongle for your specific use case. Please contact our regional sales manager for your area for details on this.

In general you will however be better off by using a ready-made Bluetooth dongle for your purpose. This will for example enable you to use the native APIs of your PC's operating system, if there are any. Such dongles may also expose some other kind of API to use BLE devices, but this is something you'd have to discuss with the dongle vendor.

One of the reasons the Master Emulator is not recommended for production solutions is that we haven't done any work on getting it Bluetooth qualified.