I doubt the limitation of PeerFinder class in .NET. Can it make connection only with other laptops when implemented on laptop and phone to same phone when implemented on phone? Is it limited only to communicate with Windows OS devices, or is it able to communicate with any bluetooth device irrespective of OS?
Kindly, help me if you are sure of this class capabilities. I have seen the implementation of 32Feet.NET but my question is limited about PeerFinder class and its limitations.
Start from this link, in which you can find several useful links for WinRT communication (the suggested protocol to use from Windows Phone 8 to communicate using NFC or Bluetooth) http://blogs.ugidotnet.org/Nick60/archive/2012/12/30/win-rt-proximity-communication.aspx
You have two possible scenarios:
App to Device: you can connect a Windows Phone 8 device to third party devices (for example a LEGO robot or car audio systems) Bluetooth/RFCOMM (that is serial port profile, for the emulation of RS232 serial connections).
App to App: for communications between Windows Phone 8 devices and also Windows 8/Windows RT devices!
The PeerFinder class is the base class for discover another instance of your app on a nearby device and create a socket connection between the peer apps by using a tap gesture or by browsing: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/apps/br241203.aspx
Hope this helps!
Unfortunately, it seems that the only way to stablish a socket connection using Bluetooth between a WP8 app and a Windows 8 app is by triggering the connection using NFC tap gesture. Although the PeerFinder documentation suggests that you might be able to specify AlternateIdentities to advertise peers running on both devices, it seems that Windows 8 relies on WiFi Direct, while WP8 uses Bluetooth.
So, if you are not able to use the NFC tap gesture between both devices to trigger the connection, you might not be able to pair both apps running on the different devices.
See this thread for more info.
