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We are making MFi hardware and an iOS app. We will want to have the BT device notify our app even if we are not running periodically when certain events happen.

I know the CoreBluetooth API is the one to use, but can't tell for sure if that API only works with BT Low Energy devices or if it will also work with regular (MFi of course) BT 2.1 and higher devices.

So my question is: Does the CoreBluetooth API only work with Bluetooth Low Energy devices or will it also work with 2.1 devices?

jhonkola
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user856232
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  • I edited your question and tags to show iOS (instead of MonoTouch) so it gets more visibility. If this works on iOS itself then it will work identically (same API used) with MonoTouch. – poupou Sep 14 '12 at 15:55
  • Ah, thank you. I don't always know the right tags to put in even though I have read the usage docs on this site. – user856232 Sep 14 '12 at 19:45
  • Is there any way to get periodic notifications that actually start up your app for a bluetooth 2.1 device then? From what I read of the external accessory API the notifications are just queued up for the next time your app starts. In CoreBluetooth your app is actually woken up and given 10 seconds to do something about the message. This is what I need, but we don't have BT LE, only BT 2.1. What do we do? – user856232 Sep 17 '12 at 13:49

1 Answers1

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Core Bluetooth is designed specifically for Bluetooth LE, a.k.a. BLE, Bluetooth 4.0 and Smart Bluetooth.

Core Bluetooth does not work with the older, classic Bluetooth devices. Those require special APIs and hardware available through Apple's MFi program.

Mike
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  • Actually the Bluetooth-dev maillist on lists.apple.com is a recommended place for discussion, as Apple seems to prefer an open ecosystem for BLE, for now: https://lists.apple.com/mailman/listinfo/bluetooth-dev – ZhangChn Dec 27 '12 at 12:16