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iOS 18 AccessorySetupKit: Everything BLE Developers Need To Know

Apple’s WWDC 2024 brought exciting advancements for Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) developers with the introduction of AccessorySetupKit in iOS 18. This new framework is designed to streamline the discovery and configuration of companion devices, offering a more efficient and intuitive process. By eliminating complex permission prompts and simplifying device pairing, AccessorySetupKit enhances the user experience for both developers and…
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The 4 Key Benefits of Automated Testing

In many ways, I’m your stereotypical software engineer. I don’t do small talk, but I can talk for days about my work and side projects. I’m easily irked by inefficiencies -- if it can be done more efficiently, why not do it that way? I also…
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Using Rx vs Delegates with CoreBluetooth

Reactive (or “Rx”) style programming is quickly becoming a popular design pattern in mobile development. What is it, and how does it compare to the tried-and-true delegation pattern? Should you be using Rx on your next mobile project? Follow…
Ultimate Guide to Apple's Core Bluetooth library

The Ultimate Guide to Apple’s Core Bluetooth

This article assumes you know the very basics of Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) and iOS programming (including the delegation pattern for asynchronous calls common to many iOS native APIs), and is meant as a comprehensive guide to the ins and outs of…
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Creating a BLE Peripheral with BlueZ

While I’m fairly well-versed in working with BLE on an embedded device, I have so far had little experience with using BLE at a higher level. To help remedy this, I underwent the task of creating a BLE peripheral running a GATT server on a…
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4 Tips to Make Android BLE Actually Work

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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Maximizing BLE Throughput on iOS and Android

Still confused about how fast you can really send data over Bluetooth Low Energy? It's not just you. A google search will turn up many incomplete answers. Each OS and device has it’s own restrictions, such as connection interval and number of…
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What is an iBeacon

At this year’s WWDC, Apple quietly announced one of their upcoming products for iOS 7, the iBeacon. Even if you’ve been following WWDC and the iOS 7 announcements, you might not have heard of the iBeacon. And even if you’ve heard the name,…
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Testing Bluetooth Low Energy Devices

Bluetooth Low Energy is a new Bluetooth standard that is exciting for a couple reasons- it enables very low power battery applications, and it further opens the smartphone accessory market. LightBlue allows you to test and simulate Bluetooth Low…