Blog

BLE Connectivity Architecture: The Ultimate Guide

Introduction Building your first connected product is no easy task. There are many wireless networking protocols, each with its benefits and tradeoffs. However, if you're interested in widespread support, including iOS or Android devices in your network, the Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) protocol is the way to go. This Ultimate Guide to BLE Connectivity Architecture is primarily designed for engineers. Still, project managers and…

BLE

The Ultimate Guide to Managing Your BLE Connection

By: Bret Hassler

Introduction One of the core aspects of designing a BLE application is determining how connections will be managed. There’s more to it than simply starting a connection whenever the devices should communicate. You must consider the…

BLE

Architecting iOS and Android Apps for IoT BLE Systems

By: Gretchen Walker

When you buy a Fitbit, you’re not just paying for the wearable hardware. You’re buying a key that unlocks access to a greater integrated system. Before you can even start using the device, you must first download the app, pair it with your…

Punch Through Office where engineers use rx and delegate programming on iOS

Mobile Apps

Using Rx vs Delegates with CoreBluetooth

By: Julian Hays

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

BLE

The Ultimate Guide to Apple’s Core Bluetooth

By: Gretchen Walker

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…

Engineer working on Human Interface Devices in office

Mobile Apps

How iOS and Android Handle Connections with BLE Human Interface Devices

By: Alec Letourneau

iOS and Android’s Bluetooth APIs allow apps to communicate with BLE devices. The API simplifies the way apps implement BLE and allows multiple apps to use BLE at the same time, but it also introduces many undocumented behaviors. Unfortunately,…

LightBlue®

How to Use LightBlue®: The Go-To BLE Development Tool

By: Gretchen Walker

We at Punch Through first began developing LightBlue® for iOS back in 2012 out of internal necessity. We were a young company carving out a determined niche in the exciting new world of Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE), the revolutionary new iteration…

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…

Mobile Apps

Why Re-Signing iOS Apps is Better than Recompiling

By: Alec Letourneau

Re-signing iOS apps allows you to open your app after it’s been built and modify everything except the application code. The main reason to use this process is to avoid recompiling an app and risking the introduction of unintended changes.…

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…

engineers sitting discussing Apple's Swift Package Manager

Mobile Apps

How to Use Apple’s Swift Package Manager

By: Julian Hays

A package manager, also sometimes referred to as a dependency manager, is a tool that facilitates installing, updating, and configuring other code packages to make them available within your software. Many iOS developers will already be very…

Team of engineers learning about background Bluetooth

Mobile Apps

Leveraging Background Bluetooth for a Great User Experience

By: Alec Letourneau

One of the most important things that users want when using a connected product is to be able to put its app in a folder and forget about it, trusting that it’ll work. Designing apps with this capability goes far beyond a product’s physical…

Punch Through team discussing mobile development

Mobile Apps

3 Reasons Native iOS and Android Apps are Better for Connected Products

By: Punch Through

One decision must be made before developing a mobile app: native or hybrid. For many developers, preconceived notions lead them down the hybrid route, believing it to be cheaper and more efficient with a "one-code-fits-all" approach. However,…

Mobile Apps

How to Handle iOS 13’s New Bluetooth Permissions

By: Alec Letourneau

iOS 13's new Bluetooth permissions have sparked many questions, and everyone’s concluding that Bluetooth apps are tracking them. With the inevitable backlash that will arise from this conclusion, will everyone start denying apps access to…

BLE

Maximizing BLE Throughput Part 3: Data Length Extension (DLE)

By: Zach Michel

Welcome back BLE enthusiasts, to the 3rd installment in Punch Through’s ‘Maximizing BLE Throughput’ blog post series. BLE 5's Data Length Extensions are one of the largest performance improvements ever made to the BLE specification. Here's…

BLE

Developing Cross Platform BLE Apps: Our Experience

By: Punch Through

Those who have successfully developed a connected product know it is a unique struggle. The idea of a product being one physical thing, where you build it, ship it, and move on, is over. Now the hardware is only one part of the puzzle, and often…

BLE

Maximizing BLE Throughput on iOS and Android

By: Punch Through

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…

Mobile Apps

What is an iBeacon

By: Punch Through

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,…

BLE

Testing Bluetooth Low Energy Devices

By: Punch Through

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…