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Device Discovery & Connection

Scan, connect, and subscribe to Aero-Tracker BLE services with example code.

Device Discovery

Aero-Tracker devices advertise with names following the pattern: AEROXXXXXX where XXXXXX is a unique identifier.

BLE Services Overview

Aero-Tracker devices expose two different BLE profiles that can be used simultaneously:

1. Generic NMEA BLE Service

Provides: Read-only access to NMEA traffic data

  • Service UUID: FFE0
  • RX Characteristic (Notify): FFE1
  • Data Format: Standard NMEA 0183 sentences
  • Permissions: No pairing required

2. Aero-Tracker Proprietary BLE Service

Provides: Device status monitoring, pairing, and configuration alongside NMEA data

  • Service UUID: 3F6AECC7-5406-47AB-9A75-0F5CF12EAF8E
  • RX Characteristic (Notify): E8A6196B-2B02-4EFE-ADC7-6702CBBA3605
  • TX Characteristic (Write): ABBDFD33-B2EF-4E78-8D7C-A7427FC441DB
  • Data Format: NMEA sentences + JSON status with ##END## markers
  • Permissions: Device pairing may be required

Connection Flow

⚠️ Important: When developing cross-platform apps, reliably identifying the same Aero-Tracker device across iOS and Android can be challenging due to differences in how device addresses are handled. For more details and recommended solutions, see: Cross-Platform Device Identification Challenge

  1. Initialize Bluetooth
  2. Scan for BLE devices advertising the target service UUID(s)
  3. Connect to the device
  4. Discover services and characteristics
  5. Subscribe to the RX characteristic(s) to receive data
  6. Set MTU to 500 bytes (Android recommended for better performance)

Basic Implementation Example

// Initialize Bluetooth
await bluetoothLE.initialize();

// Scan for devices (can scan for both services)
await bluetoothLE.startScan({ 
  services: ['FFE0', '3F6AECC7-5406-47AB-9A75-0F5CF12EAF8E']
});

// Connect to discovered device
const device = /* your device discovery implementation */;
await bluetoothLE.connect({ address: device.address });
await bluetoothLE.discover({ address: device.address });

// Set MTU for better performance (Android)
if (platform.is('android')) {
  await bluetoothLE.mtu({ address: device.address, mtu: 500 });
}

// Subscribe to NMEA data
const nmeaSubscription = bluetoothLE.subscribe({
  address: device.address,
  service: 'FFE0',
  characteristic: 'FFE1'
}).subscribe(data => {
  const chunk = bluetoothLE.bytesToString(
    bluetoothLE.encodedStringToBytes(data.value)
  );
  processNMEAData(chunk);
});

// Subscribe to status data (optional)
const statusSubscription = bluetoothLE.subscribe({
  address: device.address,
  service: '3F6AECC7-5406-47AB-9A75-0F5CF12EAF8E',
  characteristic: 'E8A6196B-2B02-4EFE-ADC7-6702CBBA3605'
}).subscribe(data => {
  const chunk = bluetoothLE.bytesToString(
    bluetoothLE.encodedStringToBytes(data.value)
  );
  processStatusData(chunk);
});

Testing Tools

For testing and debugging BLE connections, we recommend LightBlue - a powerful BLE scanner and analysis tool:

LightBlue allows you to:

  • Scan for nearby BLE devices
  • Connect and explore services/characteristics
  • Monitor real-time data streams
  • Test read/write operations
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