Bluetooth Serial Plugin for PhoneGap

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.

Supported Platforms

• Android
• iOS (with BLEMini)

Limitations

• The phone must initiate the Bluetooth connection
• Data sent over the connection is assumed to be Strings
• iOS Bluetooth Low Energy requires iPhone 4S, iPhone5, iPod 5, or iPad3+

Installing

Install with Cordova cli

$ cordova plugin add https://github.com/don/BluetoothSerial.git

This plugin is also available for PhoneGap Build

API

Methods

• bluetoothSerial.connect
• bluetoothSerial.connectInsecure
• bluetoothSerial.disconnect
• bluetoothSerial.write
• bluetoothSerial.available
• bluetoothSerial.read
• bluetoothSerial.readUntil
• bluetoothSerial.subscribe
• bluetoothSerial.unsubscribe
• bluetoothSerial.clear
• bluetoothSerial.list
• bluetoothSerial.isEnabled
• bluetoothSerial.isConnected

connect

Connect to a Bluetooth device.

bluetoothSerial.connect(macAddress_or_uuid, connectSuccess, connectFailure);

Description

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.

Android

For Android, connect takes a macAddress of the remote device.

iOS

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.

Parameters

• 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.

connectInsecure

Connect insecurely to a Bluetooth device.

bluetoothSerial.connectInsecure(macAddress, connectSuccess, connectFailure);

Description

Function connectInsecure works like connect, but creates an insecure connection to a Bluetooth device. See the Android docs for more information.

Android

For Android, connectInsecure takes a macAddress of the remote device.

iOS

connectInsecure is not supported on iOS.

Parameters

• 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

Disconnect.

bluetoothSerial.disconnect([success], [failure]);

Description

Function disconnect disconnects the current connection.

Parameters

• success: Success callback function that is invoked when the connection is successful. [optional]
• failure: Error callback function, invoked when error occurs. [optional]

write

Writes data to the serial port.

bluetoothSerial.write(data, success, failure);

Description

Function write data to the serial port. Data must be a String.

Parameters

• success: Success callback function that is invoked when the connection is successful. [optional]
• failure: Error callback function, invoked when error occurs. [optional]

available

Gets the number of bytes of data available.

bluetoothSerial.available(success, failure);

Description

Function available gets the number of bytes of data available. The bytes are passed as a parameter to the success callback.

Parameters

• success: Success callback function that is invoked when the connection is successful. [optional]
• failure: Error callback function, invoked when error occurs. [optional]

Quick Example

bluetoothSerial.available(function (numBytes) {
    console.log("There are " + numBytes + " available to read.");
}, failure);

read

Reads data from the buffer.

bluetoothSerial.read(success, failure);

Description

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.

Parameters

• 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]

Quick Example

bluetoothSerial.read(function (data) {
    console.log(data);
}, failure);

readUntil

Reads data from the buffer until it reaches a delimiter.

bluetoothSerial.readUntil('\n', success, failure);

Description

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.

Parameters

• delimiter: delimiter
• success: Success callback function that is invoked with the data.
• failure: Error callback function, invoked when error occurs. [optional]

Quick Example

bluetoothSerial.readUntil('\n', function (data) {
    console.log(data);
}, failure);

subscribe

Subscribe to be notified when data is received.

bluetoothSerial.subscribe('\n', success, failure);

Description

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.

Parameters

• delimiter: delimiter
• success: Success callback function that is invoked with the data.
• failure: Error callback function, invoked when error occurs. [optional]

Quick Example

// the success callback is called whenever data is received
bluetoothSerial.subscribe('\n', function (data) {
    console.log(data);
}, failure);

unsubscribe

Unsubscribe from a subscription.

bluetoothSerial.unsubscribe(success, failure);

Description

Function unsubscribe removes any notification added by subscribe and kills the callback.

Parameters

• success: Success callback function that is invoked when the connection is successful. [optional]
• failure: Error callback function, invoked when error occurs. [optional]

Quick Example

bluetoothSerial.unsubscribe();

clear

Clears data in the buffer.

bluetoothSerial.clear(success, failure);

Description

Function clear removes any data from the receive buffer.

Parameters

• success: Success callback function that is invoked when the connection is successful. [optional]
• failure: Error callback function, invoked when error occurs. [optional]

list

Lists bonded devices

bluetoothSerial.list(success, failure);

Description

Android

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,
    "address": "10:BF:48:CB:00:00",
    "name": "Nexus 7"
}, {
    "class": 7936,
    "address": "00:06:66:4D:00:00",
    "name": "RN42"
}]

iOS

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.

[{
    "uuid": "CC410A23-2865-F03E-FC6A-4C17E858E11E",
    "name": "Biscuit"
}]

Parameters

• success: Success callback function that is invoked with a list of bonded devices.
• failure: Error callback function, invoked when error occurs. [optional]

Quick Example

bluetoothSerial.list(function(devices) {
    devices.forEach(function(device) {
        console.log(device.address);
    })
}, failure);

isConnected

Reports the connection status.

bluetoothSerial.isConnected(success, failure);

Description

Function isConnected calls the success callback when connected to a peer and the failure callback when not connected.

Parameters

• success: Success callback function that is invoked with a boolean for connected status.
• failure: Error callback function, invoked when error occurs. [optional]

Quick Example

bluetoothSerial.isConnected(
    function() { 
        console.log("Bluetooth is connected");
    },
    function() { 
        console.log("Bluetooth is *not* connected");
    }
); 

isEnabled

Reports if bluetooth is enabled.

bluetoothSerial.isEnabled(success, failure);

Description

Function isEnabled calls the success callback when bluetooth is enabled and the failure callback when bluetooth is not enabled.

Parameters

• success: Success callback function that is invoked with a boolean for connected status.
• failure: Error callback function, invoked when error occurs. [optional]

Quick Example

bluetoothSerial.isEnabled(
    function() { 
        console.log("Bluetooth is enabled");
    },
    function() { 
        console.log("Bluetooth is *not* enabled");
    }
);    

Misc

Where does this work?

Android

Current development is done with Cordova 3.0.0 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

• 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.

iOS

NOTE: Currently iOS only works with RedBear Labs BLE Mini Hardware

This plugin was developed with Cordova 3.0 using iOS 6.x on an iPad 4 connecting to a RedBearLab BLEMini.

Ensure that you have update the BLE Mini firmware to at least Biscuit-UART_20130313.bin.

Props

Android

Most of the Bluetooth implementation was borrows from the Bluetooth Chat example in the Android SDK.

iOS

The iOS code uses RedBearLab's BLE_Framework.

API

The API for available, read, readUntil was influenced by the BtSerial Library for Processing for Arduino

Wrong Bluetooth Plugin?

If you don't need serial over Bluetooth, try the PhoneGap Bluetooth Plugin for Android

Feedback

Try the code. If you find an problem or missing feature, file an issue or create a pull request.