Articles by Chee Yi Ong

Engineer working with Android Studio in office

BLE

Mastering Permissions for Bluetooth Low Energy Android

By: Chee Yi Ong

Navigating Android’s ever-evolving permissions landscape can be a daunting task for developers building Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) applications. Over the years, Android OS updates have introduced new permissions, modified existing ones, and changed how developers must approach permissions for BLE-related functionality. Keeping up with these changes can feel like aiming at a moving target, especially when each version of Android…

BLE

The Ultimate Guide to Android Bluetooth Low Energy

By: Chee Yi Ong

Originally published on May 15, 2020, and updated on April 17, 2024. What's been updated: This ultimate guide and its companion code repository now support compileSdkVersion and targetSdkVersion 34 (Android 14). The APIs used in this…

Mobile Apps

Mastering all 5 Kotlin Scope Functions

By: Chee Yi Ong

It should come as no surprise that our Android team here at Punch Through loves Kotlin, and that we strive to write idiomatic Kotlin, taking advantage of its unique language features whenever possible. Some common questions we get from newer team…

Mobile Apps

Unit Testing Android BLE Code with RxAndroidBle

By: Chee Yi Ong

In this post, we look at what RxAndroidBle offers as far as unit testing is concerned, and we’ll also walk through a case study of unit testing a common BLE business logic. Seasoned Android developers will no doubt have heard of RxJava—a…

Engineers meeting about Kotlin language features

Mobile Apps

Our 5 Favorite Kotlin Features

By: Chee Yi Ong

When Swift was released by Apple for iOS developers, Android developers were in awe and envious of this modern programming language that provides null-safety and an expressive yet concise syntax. Thankfully, the Android Studio 3.0 release in 2017…

BLE

How Apple and Google’s Bluetooth Contact Tracing Framework Actually Works

By: Chee Yi Ong

The COVID-19 pandemic affects us all, with public life seeing disruptions at an unprecedented scale. To help curb the spread of the disease, Apple and Google have announced a joint effort to develop a contact tracing framework with a heavy focus on…

LightBlue®

What’s new in LightBlue® Android v1.6.0 and iOS v3.1.1

By: Chee Yi Ong

LightBlue® Android v1.6.0 Hello BLE fans! We've been hard at work implementing some of your most highly requested features over the past couple of months for LightBlue® Android, and we're excited to share these changes with you. The version…

Group of Punch Through team members who recommend Android App Tools and Patterns

Mobile Apps

Our Preferred Android Development Tools and Patterns

By: Chee Yi Ong

At Punch Through, we work on both greenfield and legacy app projects for our clients. For greenfield Android projects, we generally try to conform to a modern, well-documented, and well-supported architectural pattern that’s easy to follow. The…

Computer coding with Android and Bluetooth symbol - Android BLE tips

Mobile Apps

4 Tips to Make Android BLE Actually Work

By: Chee Yi Ong

Android development is hard, and it's no thanks to its relatively fragmented ecosystem and having a million OEM’s out there. Throw BLE—which is extremely hardware and Bluetooth spec. dependent!—into the mix and the platform's behavior becomes…

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LightBlue®

Introducing Cloud Connect for LightBlue® Explorer

By: Chee Yi Ong

Punch Through Design is proud to announce Cloud Connect: an exciting new feature for LightBlue®, the leading BLE debug and development tool. Cloud Connect enables users to quickly and easily send data received from your BLE devices via…

LightBlue®

Setting up Adafruit IO with LightBlue® Cloud Connect

By: Chee Yi Ong

LightBlue has the ability to send data received from your BLE devices via indication or notification to Adafruit's IO platform. You'll be prompted to provide some information for your Adafruit IO set up from within LightBlue® when you opt to…

LightBlue®

Introducing LightBlue® Explorer for Android

By: Chee Yi Ong

LightBlue Explorer for iOS has been downloaded by over 600,000 people over the years and is trusted by industrial experts and enthusiasts alike. What began as a project to simplify BLE development internally blossomed into an app that has helped…

LightBlue®

Setting up AWS IoT with LightBlue® Cloud Connect

By: Chee Yi Ong

LightBlue® Explorer has the ability to send data received from your BLE devices via indication or notification to AWS's Internet of Things (IoT) platform.You'll be prompted to provide some information for your AWS IoT set up from within…

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