BLE Pairing through App vs Device Settings

[acalpitojr]

I have been searching around, and it seems BLE devices need to be paired through their app on phones, as opposed to discovering and pairing through the phones settings menu.

Can anyone explain why we cannot pair a BLE device through a phones settings, then open up an app that will be using the BLE device?

[run_ar]

This depends on what phone you are using. On Android i think you can discover and pair with most peripherals in the Bluetooth device menu. However, on iOS you will only see devices that is natively supported by iOS, e.g. HID, HRM, ANCS etc. So if you have another device you would have to connect from the app (pairing is handled by core bluetooth), note that I don't see the problem in this approach as you would anyway need an application to use services not supported by the OS.

[Aleksander Nowakowski]

Hi, On Android you should be able to pair with any device using Settings. If Android supports it (like HID) it will connect to it. Otherwise it will just bond and disconnect. In the nRF MCP 4+ you have the BONDED tab, where you can see all your bonded devices. If the device is already connected, for example using another app, you may click the CONNECT button and connect to it also from nRF MCP. If it's not connected, it has to advertise or at least listen for connect request from the phone. Usually bonded devices are advertising directly to paired device. In nRF MCP 4+ you may also discover connections made by other application. To do that you have to enable the GATT server (Configure GATT server in navigation menu). It doesn't have to have any services, but has to be enabled. Then, whenever a device connects to a phone (or phone to a device), a tab will be opened.