Is there nRF Connect or similar program that enables development of BLE applications for Windows 10 (using native BLE API - ideally universal windows platform)?
Is there nRF Connect or similar program that enables development of BLE applications for Windows 10 (using native BLE API - ideally universal windows platform)?
Hi Gaminn,
What do you want to do with the tool? Do you need a generic tool with multifunction like what we have with the nRF Connect or you want to develop your own application on Windows 10 to connect to your BLE device ? If you simply want to make an application you can have a look at this heart rate example. It uses the native Windows10 APIs so no dongle required.
Other than that I don't know of any similar tool like nRF Connect on Windows 10.
Hi Gaminn,
What do you want to do with the tool? Do you need a generic tool with multifunction like what we have with the nRF Connect or you want to develop your own application on Windows 10 to connect to your BLE device ? If you simply want to make an application you can have a look at this heart rate example. It uses the native Windows10 APIs so no dongle required.
Other than that I don't know of any similar tool like nRF Connect on Windows 10.
Actually I'm looking for any evidence that one can read/write data from BLE device with custom gatt services and characteristic on Windows 10. I spent several days trying to write Universal Windows Platform programs which reads/writes gatt of my nrf51 device with custom characteristics. After unsuccesfull trials I have a feeling that Windows BLE support is not usable and stable yet. Do you (people at Nordic) have different opinion?
@gaminn: Have you tried the example I linked above ? Are you telling that you can use BLE with the 16 bit UUID but not with the 128 bit UUID ? I don't think it could be the issue.
So, I tried the example you linked on Windows 10. I loaded pca10028 with ble_app_hrs_s110_pca10028. I paired the device in Windows Bluetooth settings. I can see Nordic_HRM in device manager. After I clicked Run in the app you linked a gatt service appears. When I clicked on it I get a message: Access to the device is denied, because the application was not granted access, or the device is currently in use by another application.... It is always the same - BLE on Win simply doesn't work, at least for me. Or did I miss something?
I don't have a Windows 10 machine here to test at this moment but last time I tested (ab 2-3 years ago) with a Windows 8 machine , it worked fine for me at that time.
We do provide some example for Windows Phone OS as on Github here. As far as I know the API on Windows Phone and on Windows for PC are pretty similar and the developer told me that we can make the example works on Windows PC with some minor modification. I guess it s worth a try.
It would be great if you have Windows BLE examples. Please note that there is now Universal Windows Platforms (UWP) since Win10 - you have one code that runs on all PC, tablet, phone. There are examples of UWP BLE code. I was succesfull in scanning nearby BLE devices, pairing them with Windows (they then appear in device manager like any other HW you use), but I have been never able to read/write gatt. For me the UWP BLE api often throws exceptions or return null objects. I found no documentation or no support for this.
