Test Bluetoothe pairing without bonding

[sboudaud]

Hi,

We are developing BLE firmware that will allow BLE pairing without bonding (but with PIN/Passkey that is entered from the phone). However, when I try this with nRFconnect (on Android), the nRFconnect bonds immediately.

However, what we desire is the following:

Test Case 1:

1. nRFconnect connects to the tracker

2. nRFconnect pairs with our device (our device will ask for PIN which is entered on the phone). We are using BLE pin/passkey mechanism for security

3. nRFconnect can interact with the tracker without creating permanent bond with the tracker

Test Case 2:

1. nRFconnect connects to the tracker

2. nRFconnect pairs with our device (our device will ask for PIN which is entered on the phone). We are using BLE pin/passkey mechanism for secuirity

3. nRFconnect can interact with the tracker without creating permanent bond with the tracker

4. The user requests to bond with device from nRFconnect menu and then ONLY nRFconnect makes a permanent bond.

Do you think nRFconnect for desktop allows the above two test cases?

If you think I should use some other tool instead of nRFconnect to verify our implementation, please let me know.

Regards,

Rohit

[Hung Bui]

Hi Stephane, 

nRF Connect for Desktop can support what you want to achieve. 

You can find the option here: 

Pairing means encrypt the connection without storing bond information (no Long Term Key) when bonding means encrypt the connection with bond information stored. 

This option is not available from the nRF Connect on Android/iOS. 

However, on the peripheral side you can choose if you want to support bonding/pairing or not. If you are using nRF5 SDK, you can enable/disable bonding by changing SEC_PARAM_BOND when you call pm_sec_params_set()

[sboudaud]

Thanks Hung Bui, I made it work using nRFconnect for desktop. I have another question on why pairing without bonding is not supported in nRFconnect (mobile version). Is it because Android or iOS does not support pairing without bonding?

[Hung Bui]

Hi Stephane, 

As far as I know it's not an option on the phone to choose if you do pairing or only bonding. Bonding is the default option, unless the peripheral doesn't support bonding.

So, in short, on the phone you can not choose to only do pairing if the peripheral supports bonding. 

[sboudaud]

Thanks Hung Bui. My question was the reason why nRFconnect (Android version) does not support this feature. Is it because its not supported by Android or this feature has not been planned in nRFconnect (mobile app version)

[Hung Bui]

Hi Stephane, 

As far as I know it's not an option on any app on the phone to do that. So it's a limitation on Android, not by the nRF Connect app. But I/we might not have all the information about Android. You may want to double check on an Android forum/support channel. 

There is some discussion here: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/52100749/ble-paring-without-bonding-on-android