Best solution to BLE-enabled device as central and peripheral?

RE: Best solution to BLE-enabled device as central and peripheral?

James Yu — Mon, 09 May 2016 20:53:32 GMT

Yes that is correct based on your description of your application.

The phone does not need to advertise, it just needs to discover and use the services on the smartwatch.

As an example take a look at the Glucose service below: developer.bluetooth.org/.../ServiceViewer.aspx

Pretend the smartwatch implements this service, then the smartwatch can send glucose measurements to the phone using the Glucose Measurement characteristic, and the phone can send data to the smartwatch using the Record Access Control Point characteristic.

RE: Best solution to BLE-enabled device as central and peripheral?

Ross Llewallyn — Mon, 09 May 2016 19:13:44 GMT

So, if I were to summarize, the benefits afforded by getting a chip that can serve as both central and peripheral are not the ones I need. I can program the smart watch to use the service as the client? Or does the phone have to advertise it?

I'm aware at this point we're getting away from the original question, though. Thank you both for the replies.

RE: Best solution to BLE-enabled device as central and peripheral?

run_ar — Mon, 09 May 2016 12:48:49 GMT

What James says is true. In addition you should know that the GATT server / client capabilities is not linked directly to the Peripheral / Central roles. So a Peripheral can also be the Gatt Client while the Central is the Gatt Server. E.g. most ANCS applications.

RE: Best solution to BLE-enabled device as central and peripheral?

James Yu — Fri, 06 May 2016 17:19:40 GMT

So if I understand correctly you have a smart watch that you want to communicate with a mobile phone.

In this case it is sufficient for the smartwatch to be the peripheral and the phone to be the central all the time. The smartwatch can send notifications to the phone, and the phone can read and write to the smartwatch.

Notifications from the phone can be achieved using writes, so there is really no need to reverse the roles.