How do I make Raspberry Pi 3 discoverable for iOS and CoreBluetooth?

Question

I have a Raspberry Pi 3 and I am trying to make it discoverable for iOS devices. I ran sudo hciconfig hci0 piscan to make it discoverable. I can see it with my iMac.

On iOS, I am using CoreBluetooth and running a scan for nearby devices. I can discover several FitBit devices and my iMac, but the Raspberry Pi is not showing up.

Is there another setting that I have to enable for Bluetooth LE discoverability? Is the Raspberry Pi 3 compatible with iOS for bluetooth connectivity?

Thanks in advance. I appreciate any help with this.

score 16 · Accepted Answer · answered Jun 20 '16 at 22:23

16

After much research and some help from a Twitter friend, to enable the LE broadcast you have to use one of the following commands.

sudo hciconfig hci0 leadv 0
sudo hciconfig hci0 leadv 3

The 0 indicates connectable.

The 3 indicates non connectable.

answered Jun 20 '16 at 22:23

Jeremiah Jessel

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have the same problem - what else should I do in order that raspberry could become visible not only by Mac but also by iOS device? – moonvader Nov 11 '16 at 08:02
You are great. I have the same problem and could not solve it until your answer:) – Ad Infinitum Apr 14 '17 at 12:58
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when i use `sudo hciconfig hci0 leadv 0` didDiscover method is called. TY so much :) – Piotr Badura Jan 04 '18 at 14:03

score 3 · Answer 2 · answered Jul 27 '17 at 14:14

3

For those having issue connection to Iphone, the only way I found to make the RPi visible in the Bluetooth Scanning screen is to set the raspberry PI role/profile as audio sink as per below in addition to the posted in @Jeremiah Jessel answer:

sudo /bin/hciconfighci0 inqdata "0c097261737062657272797069020a00091002006b1d460217050d03001801180e110c1115110b1100"

all in one line, the long string is the enquiry data, in this string we are setting the bluetooth name and the profiles supported by our raspberry PI

answered Jul 27 '17 at 14:14

Jonathan Ruiz

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thank you, that is what made it work for iOS. Do you know how to generate this hex-encoded data, if, let's say you want to change the advertised name? – Manuel Otto Apr 04 '18 at 10:43
This was it for me using a RPi 4 + iPhone 11 – Dana Woodman Oct 01 '19 at 05:34

score 3 · Answer 3 · edited Oct 01 '19 at 06:28

For anyone that was helped by HubuN and was wondering the same thing as Manuel Otto, you can change the name by editing the hex data after 0c09 and before 020a. I don't have the reputation to add a comment, which is why I'm adding a separate answer.

Using HubuN's example:

sudo /bin/hciconfig hci0 inqdata "0c097261737062657272797069020a00091002006b1d460217050d03001801180e110c1115110b1100"

"raspberrypi" is 7261737062657272797069

So let's say you wanted to change it to "MyName"

You would get the hex for "MyName" and fill the remaining empty data with 0's

4d794e616d65 = "MyName"

7261737062657272797069 = "raspberrypi"

4d794e616d650000000000 = "MyName     "

Which gives you:

sudo /bin/hciconfig hci0 inqdata "0c094d794e616d650000000000020a00091002006b1d460217050d03001801180e110c1115110b1100"

I'm not super familiar with the rest of the hex code, so if someone else wants to explain it, or even provide an easier solution, feel free.

(Note: you can use a tool like this one to convert from text to HEX)

How do I make Raspberry Pi 3 discoverable for iOS and CoreBluetooth?

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