LE Secure Connections compatible with Android

RE: LE Secure Connections compatible with Android

nosignal — Fri, 21 Sep 2018 09:40:50 GMT

It's OK.

I posted this new thread because of this problem:

https://devzone.nordicsemi.com/f/nordic-q-a/38646/lesc-compatible-device-list

RE: LE Secure Connections compatible with Android

VanNuru — Fri, 21 Sep 2018 09:02:01 GMT

Sorry, I don't, and I didn't really do much more research on that problem since I posted this.

RE: LE Secure Connections compatible with Android

nosignal — Mon, 17 Sep 2018 17:01:10 GMT

Hi VanNuru

I had some similar problem with LESC compatibility on Android devices.

Today it is still a big problem due to the diversity of criteria by the manufacturers.

As you comment, LESC is supposed to be a simple software update of the BT 4.0 or 4.1, but I'm very dissapointed with the manufacturers policy about updates, even more, considering this as a security update.

Have you any model/manufacturer list of LESC compliant devices?

RE: LE Secure Connections compatible with Android

Hung Bui — Fri, 02 Feb 2018 12:36:57 GMT

I'm not sure but maybe you can check if it support Bluetooth 4.2 and above or not. But this doesn't guarantee it support LESC. Best way to check is to connect to it and see if the link is encrypted with LESC (lesc bit is set inside ble_gap_evt_auth_status_t when you receive BLE_GAP_EVT_AUTH_STATUS event.

RE: LE Secure Connections compatible with Android

anticafe — Fri, 02 Feb 2018 10:50:34 GMT

Do you know how to detect which Android devices support LESC?

RE: LE Secure Connections compatible with Android

jemajuca — Mon, 24 Apr 2017 21:35:46 GMT

Hi Hung. Thank you very much for this information. I will check it.

RE: LE Secure Connections compatible with Android

Hung Bui — Mon, 24 Apr 2017 13:48:56 GMT

I afraid you will have to check on each phone you want to work with. You don't have to actually test it with your device but can check on the Implementation Conformance Statement (ICS) on Bluetooth website for that specific phone. For example here is the ICS for Samsung Folder 2 code name : SM-G160N. In the ICS at table 25 and 35 LE Secure connection was marked as supported.

You can find other phone by searching its code name from here.

RE: LE Secure Connections compatible with Android

jemajuca — Fri, 21 Apr 2017 15:10:24 GMT

Hi Hung. So how to be sure that an application using 4.2 LESC for numeric comparison pairing and LE privacy will be compatible with which devices?

RE: LE Secure Connections compatible with Android

Hung Bui — Fri, 21 Apr 2017 14:07:06 GMT

@jemajuca: A phone doesn't need to support LE Secure Connection to be 4.2 compatible. As far as I understand LE Secure Connection is optional feature.

We unfortunately don't have a list of phone that support LE Secure connection. As far as I know newer Nexus phones and Samsung from S6 support it.

RE: LE Secure Connections compatible with Android

jemajuca — Fri, 21 Apr 2017 09:53:49 GMT

Hi Hung. I think most of us are confused by the use of 4.2 features because of this diversity of posibilities on Android devices. Can you post the BLE 4.2 compatible Android devices you have tested? Also, has Nordic any test app for check the different smartphones compatibility? Thank you.

RE: LE Secure Connections compatible with Android

VanNuru — Wed, 16 Nov 2016 13:09:50 GMT

ok, thank you. I know that static passkey is not optimal, but without i/o capabilities, there is no alternative but oob with nfc, which we also cannot use. So we prefer at least a bit of mitm protection and recommend pairing in a safe environment instead of just works.

RE: LE Secure Connections compatible with Android

Hung Bui — Wed, 16 Nov 2016 12:52:21 GMT

yes it's applied for SDK v11 also. And yes, passkey exchange is different from numeric comparison and just work. I linked just in case you use just work. Note that using static passkey is not covered by spec and reduces the security level of the whole pairing process.

RE: LE Secure Connections compatible with Android

VanNuru — Wed, 16 Nov 2016 12:48:05 GMT

ah, thx. But does it also apply sdk11, which is what I'm using? And doesn't passkey entry use another key exchange protocoll that just works and numeric comparison?

RE: LE Secure Connections compatible with Android

VanNuru — Wed, 16 Nov 2016 12:34:01 GMT

Thanks for the input. As my service characteristics require encryption and mitm protection, using a less secure pairing would not happen, I guess.

RE: LE Secure Connections compatible with Android

Hung Bui — Wed, 16 Nov 2016 12:32:19 GMT

ok, just be aware of issue #5 in New Found issues section here.

RE: LE Secure Connections compatible with Android

VanNuru — Wed, 16 Nov 2016 12:30:10 GMT

I'm not quite sure what the problem is. I hope to be able to do some tests in the next few days with your example programms. But I'll have to modify them anyway, because we have custom hardware with no real i/o capacity, which is why I'm using a static passkey. Or maybe, I'll just output the comparison numbers to the terminal. I'll come back, when I know more. Thanks so far.

RE: LE Secure Connections compatible with Android

Hung Bui — Wed, 16 Nov 2016 12:01:23 GMT

LESC is supported on our test Sony Z3 compact Android 6.0.1

What is the issue with yours ?

Note that if you are testing with the example ble_app_multirole_lesc, you would need to press button 1 when pairing. It's using Numeric confirmation as the MITM mechanism. You need to use UART to get the prompt.

Also if you are bonding using the Bluetooth Setting, the phone disconnect automatically right after bond process. If you want to keep the connection, please use an app, nRF Connect for example.

RE: LE Secure Connections compatible with Android

Tim — Tue, 15 Nov 2016 15:11:27 GMT

It works well on my Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge+ with Android 6.0.1. Note that with devices that are not compatible with BLE 4.2 you can have two behaviors : The first is to refuse the pairing, the second is to use a less secure pairing (depending on the devices' capabilities, so it could be down to Just Works). It was on a nRF52 devkit with this example : infocenter.nordicsemi.com/.../ble_sdk_app_multirole_lesc.html