Device Discovery & Connection

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: TODO Cross-Platform Device Identification Challenge

Initialize Bluetooth Scan for BLE devices advertising the target service UUID(s) Connect to the device Discover services and characteristics Subscribe to the RX characteristic(s) to receive data 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:

iOS: App Store Android: Google Play

LightBlue allows you to:

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