Enable BLE on PC

[gaminn]

Hi, what should I do in order to enable Bluetooth Low Energy on PC (mainly Windows XP to 8, but Linux or Mac would be nice if they don't support BLE natively)?

My device uses custom (non standard) GATT service. Windows 8.1 can pair with standard BLE device like heart rate monitor, but custom GATT services are not supported.

I guess I have to buy an USB Bluetooth 4.0 dongle (have to be at least FCC and CE certified). But which one will be able to accomplish my task most simply - connect to my custom GATT service and write/read my characteristics? It would be nice if the dongle provides some C/C++/.NET API.

Any idea welcomed.

[Øyvind Karlsen]

Hi,

Have a look at the pc-ble-driver library.

I recommend using the nRF51-Dongle for development, as it offers a lot of additional features(sniffer, MCP), compared to a regular dongle.

Best regards,

Øyvind

[Øyvind Karlsen]

From the documentation:

The Driver supports the following boards:

pca10028: nRF51422 development kit (v1.0 or higher)
pca10031: nRF51422 development dongle (v1.0 or higher)
In order for the Driver to operate, a supported board from the list above must be connected to the PC.

The necessary firmware to use this driver can be programmed by just copying connectivity_1M_with_s130_1.0.0.hex file onto the drive your board shows up as. The file contains both the connectivity firmware and SoftDevice.

On Windows you can also use nRFgo Studio or nrfjprog to program the HEX files.

If you wish to compile the connectivity firmware yourself, you can do that. The SoftDevice and connectivity firmware source code is available in the nRF51 SDK (separate download).

[brianreinhold]

After all this is said an done it is not clear if the program I write is running on the PC or running on the board. Downloading the HEX file sounds like it is running on the board. It sounds like what the user wants is to run on the PC. I know that is what I am looking for.