tinkerhub-bridge-bluetooth

This module provides access to Bluetooth devices and peripherals in a Tinkerhub network. These devices can then be extended by other plugins to provide device specific functionality.

• Latest version: 0.2.0
• Status: Unstable, currently advertisements seem to stop after a while and no devices can be found.

Installation and use

This module uses a Noble which has some prerequisites depending on your platform.

When running tinkerhubd install via:

$ tinkerhubd install bridge-bluetooth

Running on Linux

To make things run smoothly on Linux you should use setcap to allow Node to start and stop scanning.

sudo setcap cap_net_raw+eip $(eval readlink -f `which node`)

setcap is needed, which is usually available in the package libcap2-bin.

Connecting to a device

The command bleConnect will mark a device for connection and allow other plugins to interact with it:

$ tinkerhub
> bluetooth:ccb11ab6a729 bleConnect

Extending devices

To extend a Bluetooth device it is recommended to look for both the type and the capability ble-connected which indicates that a device is connected.

th.get('type:bluetooth-low-energy', 'cap:ble-connected')
  .extendWith(thing => thing.bleInspect()
    .then(data => {
      const services = data.services;
      if(! services[NEEDED_SERVICE]) return;

      return new CustomDevice(thing).init();
    })
  );

The following actions are available for use:

• bleConnect

  Connect to a device and mark it for automatic connection. Used to initialize connections.

• bleDisconnect

  Disconnect from a device and stop connecting to it automatically.

• bleInspect: object

  Inspect the services and characteristics that the device supports.

• bleRead(charateristic): mixed

  Read data from the given characteristic.

• bleWrite(characteristic, mixed, options={})

  Write some data to the specified characteristic. The only option available is withoutResponse that when set to to true will do a write without waiting for the device to acknowledge it.

• bleSubscribe(characteristic)

  Subscribe to the characteristic to be notified when the device changes the value of the characteristic.

The following events are available:

• ble:notify

  Emitted when a subscribed characteristic changes. Is given an object with three keys: service, characteristic and data.