This plugin enables serial communication over Bluetooth. It was written for communicating between Android or iOS and an Arduino.
Android uses Classic Bluetooth. iOS uses Bluetooth Low Energy.
- Android
- iOS with RedBearLab BLE hardware, Adafruit Bluefruit LE, Laird BL600, or BlueGiga
Supporting other Bluetooth Low Energy hardware
- The phone must initiate the Bluetooth connection
- iOS Bluetooth Low Energy requires iPhone 4S, iPhone5, iPod 5, or iPad3+
- Will not connect Android to Android*
- Will not connect iOS to iOS*
Install with Cordova cli
$ cordova plugin add com.megster.cordova.bluetoothserial
This plugin is also available for PhoneGap Build
There are some sample projects included with the plugin.
- bluetoothSerial.connect
- bluetoothSerial.connectInsecure
- bluetoothSerial.disconnect
- bluetoothSerial.write
- bluetoothSerial.available
- bluetoothSerial.read
- bluetoothSerial.readUntil
- bluetoothSerial.subscribe
- bluetoothSerial.unsubscribe
- bluetoothSerial.subscribeRawData
- bluetoothSerial.unsubscribeRawData
- bluetoothSerial.clear
- bluetoothSerial.list
- bluetoothSerial.isEnabled
- bluetoothSerial.isConnected
- bluetoothSerial.readRSSI
Connect to a Bluetooth device.
bluetoothSerial.connect(macAddress_or_uuid, connectSuccess, connectFailure);
Function connect connects to a Bluetooth device. The callback is long running. Success will be called when the connection is successful. Failure is called if the connection fails, or later if the connection disconnects. An error message is passed to the failure callback.
For Android, connect takes a macAddress of the remote device.
For iOS, connect takes the UUID of the remote device. Optionally, you can pass an empty string and the plugin will connect to the first BLE peripheral.
- macAddress_or_uuid: Identifier of the remote device.
- connectSuccess: Success callback function that is invoked when the connection is successful.
- connectFailure: Error callback function, invoked when error occurs or the connection disconnects.
Connect insecurely to a Bluetooth device.
bluetoothSerial.connectInsecure(macAddress, connectSuccess, connectFailure);
Function connectInsecure works like connect, but creates an insecure connection to a Bluetooth device. See the Android docs for more information.
For Android, connectInsecure takes a macAddress of the remote device.
connectInsecure is not supported on iOS.
- macAddress: Identifier of the remote device.
- connectSuccess: Success callback function that is invoked when the connection is successful.
- connectFailure: Error callback function, invoked when error occurs or the connection disconnects.
Disconnect.
bluetoothSerial.disconnect([success], [failure]);
Function disconnect disconnects the current connection.
- success: Success callback function that is invoked when the connection is successful. [optional]
- failure: Error callback function, invoked when error occurs. [optional]
Writes data to the serial port.
bluetoothSerial.write(data, success, failure);
Function write data to the serial port. Data must be a String.
Data can be an ArrayBuffer, string, array of integers, or a Uint8Array.
Internally string, integer array, and Uint8Array are converted to an ArrayBuffer. String conversion assume 8bit characters.
- data: ArrayBuffer of data
- success: Success callback function that is invoked when the connection is successful. [optional]
- failure: Error callback function, invoked when error occurs. [optional]
// string
bluetoothSerial.write("hello, world", success, failure);
// array of int (or bytes)
bluetoothSerial.write([186, 220, 222], success, failure);
// Typed Array
var data = new Uint8Array(4);
data[0] = 0x41;
data[1] = 0x42;
data[2] = 0x43;
data[3] = 0x44;
bluetoothSerial.write(data, success, failure);
// Array Buffer
bluetoothSerial.write(data.buffer, success, failure);
Gets the number of bytes of data available.
bluetoothSerial.available(success, failure);
Function available gets the number of bytes of data available. The bytes are passed as a parameter to the success callback.
- success: Success callback function that is invoked when the connection is successful. [optional]
- failure: Error callback function, invoked when error occurs. [optional]
bluetoothSerial.available(function (numBytes) {
console.log("There are " + numBytes + " available to read.");
}, failure);
Reads data from the buffer.
bluetoothSerial.read(success, failure);
Function read reads the data from the buffer. The data is passed to the success callback as a String. Calling read when no data is available will pass an empty String to the callback.
- success: Success callback function that is invoked with the number of bytes available to be read.
- failure: Error callback function, invoked when error occurs. [optional]
bluetoothSerial.read(function (data) {
console.log(data);
}, failure);
Reads data from the buffer until it reaches a delimiter.
bluetoothSerial.readUntil('\n', success, failure);
Function readUntil reads the data from the buffer until it reaches a delimiter. The data is passed to the success callback as a String. If the buffer does not contain the delimiter, an empty String is passed to the callback. Calling read when no data is available will pass an empty String to the callback.
- delimiter: delimiter
- success: Success callback function that is invoked with the data.
- failure: Error callback function, invoked when error occurs. [optional]
bluetoothSerial.readUntil('\n', function (data) {
console.log(data);
}, failure);
Subscribe to be notified when data is received.
bluetoothSerial.subscribe('\n', success, failure);
Function subscribe registers a callback that is called when data is received. A delimiter must be specified. The callback is called with the data as soon as the delimiter string is read. The callback is a long running callback and will exist until unsubscribe is called.
- delimiter: delimiter
- success: Success callback function that is invoked with the data.
- failure: Error callback function, invoked when error occurs. [optional]
// the success callback is called whenever data is received
bluetoothSerial.subscribe('\n', function (data) {
console.log(data);
}, failure);
Unsubscribe from a subscription.
bluetoothSerial.unsubscribe(success, failure);
Function unsubscribe removes any notification added by subscribe and kills the callback.
- success: Success callback function that is invoked when the connection is successful. [optional]
- failure: Error callback function, invoked when error occurs. [optional]
bluetoothSerial.unsubscribe();
Subscribe to be notified when data is received.
bluetoothSerial.subscribeRawData(success, failure);
Function subscribeRawData registers a callback that is called when data is received. The callback is called immediately when data is received. The data is sent to callback as an ArrayBuffer. The callback is a long running callback and will exist until unsubscribeRawData is called.
- success: Success callback function that is invoked with the data.
- failure: Error callback function, invoked when error occurs. [optional]
// the success callback is called whenever data is received
bluetoothSerial.subscribeRawData(function (data) {
var bytes = new Uint8Array(data);
console.log(bytes);
}, failure);
Unsubscribe from a subscription.
bluetoothSerial.unsubscribeRawData(success, failure);
Function unsubscribeRawData removes any notification added by subscribeRawData and kills the callback.
- success: Success callback function that is invoked when the connection is successful. [optional]
- failure: Error callback function, invoked when error occurs. [optional]
bluetoothSerial.unsubscribeRawData();
Clears data in the buffer.
bluetoothSerial.clear(success, failure);
Function clear removes any data from the receive buffer.
- success: Success callback function that is invoked when the connection is successful. [optional]
- failure: Error callback function, invoked when error occurs. [optional]
Lists bonded devices
bluetoothSerial.list(success, failure);
Function list lists the paired Bluetooth devices. The success callback is called with a list of objects.
Example list passed to success callback. See BluetoothDevice and BluetoothClass#getDeviceClass.
[{
"class": 276,
"id": "10:BF:48:CB:00:00",
"address": "10:BF:48:CB:00:00",
"name": "Nexus 7"
}, {
"class": 7936,
"id": "00:06:66:4D:00:00",
"address": "00:06:66:4D:00:00",
"name": "RN42"
}]
Function list lists the discovered Bluetooth Low Energy peripheral. The success callback is called with a list of objects.
Example list passed to success callback for iOS.
[{
"id": "CC410A23-2865-F03E-FC6A-4C17E858E11E",
"uuid": "CC410A23-2865-F03E-FC6A-4C17E858E11E",
"name": "Biscuit",
"rssi": -68
}]
The advertised RSSI may be included if available.
id is the generic name for uuid or [mac]address so that code can be platform independent.
- success: Success callback function that is invoked with a list of bonded devices.
- failure: Error callback function, invoked when error occurs. [optional]
bluetoothSerial.list(function(devices) {
devices.forEach(function(device) {
console.log(device.id);
})
}, failure);
Reports the connection status.
bluetoothSerial.isConnected(success, failure);
Function isConnected calls the success callback when connected to a peer and the failure callback when not connected.
- success: Success callback function, invoked when device connected.
- failure: Error callback function, invoked when device is NOT connected.
bluetoothSerial.isConnected(
function() {
console.log("Bluetooth is connected");
},
function() {
console.log("Bluetooth is *not* connected");
}
);
Reports if bluetooth is enabled.
bluetoothSerial.isEnabled(success, failure);
Function isEnabled calls the success callback when bluetooth is enabled and the failure callback when bluetooth is not enabled.
- success: Success callback function, invoked when Bluetooth is enabled.
- failure: Error callback function, invoked when Bluetooth is NOT enabled.
bluetoothSerial.isEnabled(
function() {
console.log("Bluetooth is enabled");
},
function() {
console.log("Bluetooth is *not* enabled");
}
);
Reads the RSSI from the connected peripheral.
bluetoothSerial.readRSSI(success, failure);
Function readRSSI calls the success callback with the rssi.
BLE only This function is experimental and the API may change
- success: Success callback function that is invoked with the rssi value.
- failure: Error callback function, invoked when error occurs. [optional]
bluetoothSerial.readRSSI(
function(rssi) {
console.log(rssi);
}
);
Current development is done with Cordova 3.4 on Android 4.x. Theoretically this code runs on PhoneGap 2.9 and greater. It should support Android-10 (2.3.2) and greater, but I only test with Android 4.x.
Development Devices include
- Nexus 5 with Android 4.4
- Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 (GT-P7510) with Android 4.0.4 (see Issue #8)
- Google Nexus S with Android 4.1.2
- Nexus 4 with Android 4.2.2
- Samsung Galaxy S4 with Android 4.3
On the Arduino side I test with Sparkfun Mate Silver and the Seeed Studio Bluetooth Shield. The code should be generic and work with most hardware.
I highly recommend Adafruit's Bluefruit EZ-Link.
NOTE: Currently iOS only works with RedBear Labs Hardware and Adafruit Bluefruit LE
This plugin is developed with Cordova 3.4 using iOS 7.x on an iPhone 5s connecting to a RedBearLab BLEMini.
Ensure that you have update the BLE Mini firmware to at least Biscuit-UART_20130313.bin.
For Bluetooth Low Energy, this plugin supports the RedBear Labs hardware by default, but can support any Bluetooth Low Energy hardware with a "serial like" service. This means a transmit characteristic that is writable and a receive characteristic that supports notification.
Edit BLEdefines.h and adjust the UUIDs for your service.
Most of the Bluetooth implementation was borrowed from the Bluetooth Chat example in the Android SDK.
The iOS code uses RedBearLab's BLE_Framework.
The API for available, read, readUntil was influenced by the BtSerial Library for Processing for Arduino
If you don't need serial over Bluetooth, try the PhoneGap Bluetooth Plugin for Android or perhaps phonegap-plugin-bluetooth.
If you need generic Bluetooth Low Energy support checkout my Cordova BLE Plugin.
If you need BLE for RFduino checkout my RFduino Plugin.
An example a properly formatted mac address is AA:BB:CC:DD:EE:FF
Try the code. If you find an problem or missing feature, file an issue or create a pull request.