Using a phone as the BLE Host

[Alex Lynchosky]

So far I have made a successful program that utilizes BLE to send and receive radio signals in Kiel. But I have only been testing this program by using the provided Master Control Panel host. I have done a bit of research on Androids, and which models can support BLE, but I've found no definitive evidence one way or another if BLE is a firmware or a hardware upgrade.

So my question is this:

Which phones will work with the Nordic chip through BLE, or could work with a software update? And do you know of any good SDKs or APIs to facilitate my next step of testing?

Thanks in advance!

[Carles]

Hi there,

Right now your best bet is to use an recent iOS device, since those come with BLE built-in and standard APIs that work well. If you want to go the Android route, you can either wait until the next Android version is released (4.3) which will integrate platform-wide standard BLE APIs, or else use one of the phones that come bundled with manufacturer-specific BLE APIs.

There is plenty of information on the internet about this, since pretty much everyone working with BLE is faced with the same challenge.

Carles

[Alex Lynchosky]

Yeah this is pretty much what I gathered from my searches as well. This is unfortunate, since none of these options let me start progressing immediately. I was hoping there was something I missed. Thank you for the response!