How to get iOS 11.3 to see nrf52832 advertising - is there a workaround?

[Renix]

I had the nrf52832 with BLE 4.2 running just fine with iOS 10.xx and Android phones.

iPhone would SCAN and connect and I could interact with the services on the hardware.

Then iOS 11.xx came out, and the iPhone does not see the advertising.

I can use the Nordic app to scan, then connect, then disconnect, and the iPhone will show the device.

If I forget the device on the iPhone, it is gone, iOS will not see it during discovery.

The only way is the use the Nordic app to connect first.

I read up the iOS 11.3 will only see the built in pre-defined profiles. Is there a work around?

Hands-Free Profile (HFP 1.6)
Phone Book Access Profile (PBAP)
Advanced Audio Distribution Profile (A2DP)
Audio/Video Remote Control Profile (AVRCP 1.4)
Personal Area Network Profile (PAN)
Human Interface Device Profile (HID)
Message Access Profile (MAP)

[Einar Thorsrud]

Hi,

Where did you get that list? I think it depends on the services, not necessarily the profile. The advertising BLE peripheral will show up under Bluetooth Settings in iOS if one of the services is supported natively. Bonded devices always show up, even if they are not supported natively. A typical use case is to use a special app to handle the device, and search for and connect to it there. I think this makes most sense from a user friendliness perspective as well. It would not be intuitive to see a BLE peripheral and connect to it from Settings, but not be able to actually use it because you do not have the required app.

If you really want to be able to connect to the peripheral from Bluetooth Settings, then it has to include one of the natively supported services. However, imho. this would impair the user-friendliness and should be avoided. (This is probably the very reason why Apple are not showing non-natively supported devices there in the first place.)