Also remember that if you’re out of range of the device, or the battery is dead, no app can detect it. If you do not see it, ensure the device is not already connected to your mobile device or anything else, because most devices will stop advertising when they are connected and LightBlue® will not be able to detect it. To locate a specific Bluetooth device using the app, look for it by name in the device list. ![]() So, How do I Use LightBlue® to Find a Lost Device? The closer you are, the closer the RSSI will be to 0, and the more signal bars will turn from gray to blue. Next to each device’s name in the app, you should see a regularly-changing negative number, which is the RSSI, accompanied by an image of signal bars. The closer you are to the peripheral device, the stronger the signal should appear to be. The perceived power of a remote device’s signal to a mobile device is determined by many different factors, one of which is relative distance. This is a relative measure of the estimated signal strength received by the mobile device, and because it’s in decibels, it’s shown as a negative number between -99 and -30. One of the most important pieces of information LightBlue® provides is the device’s current RSSI. Most of the “Unnamed” devices you see are likely nearby phones and laptops, which can be a lot if you’re in an office or even near a crowded street. If the device is not advertising a name, it’ll simply be listed as “Unnamed”. When you launch the app, you should be greeted with a list of nearby BLE devices by name. Our app doesn’t use nor track your location - this is an Android SDK requirement as dictated by Google to use Bluetooth at all. ![]() ![]() For Android, ensure that you’ve provided the app access to Location Services in order to see BLE scan results.On iOS, ensure you’ve given the app permission to use Bluetooth (check this in the LightBlue® page in your iOS device’s standard Settings app).In addition to making sure Bluetooth is on, there are a couple more platform-specific notes to be aware of: Go to your phone or tablet’s Settings->Bluetooth page and “Forget” the device if you see it listed there. Most of the time, if the device is already connected to something, it won’t advertise, and LightBlue® will not be able to see it-even if it’s connected to the same phone or tablet you’re using LightBlue® on. ⚠️ In general, LightBlue® can only see your device if it’s advertising. All of this and more can be done easily from the very first screen of LightBlue®. Although it was not our target audience, we’ve had tens of thousands of users successfully locate their lost Fitbits and other BLE devices dropped under beds, left in cars, carried off by pets, etc.Īs an engineer, you might want a quick way to check the signal strength of your peripheral, see which ones are close by and actively advertising, or identify the one on your desk in an office full of similar devices. For many of you, this is literally the only thing you’re interested in doing. To interact with any BLE device, the first thing you need to do is, obviously, locate it. We’re immensely proud of how LightBlue® has helped others in many different capacities, and we hope this exploration of its major applications and features might help and inspire you too! The Device Detector (Where’s my Fitbit?) At its core, Punch Through is just a group of people who are passionate about learning and building things, and we’re much better served when we contribute back to the greater developer community that’s allowed us to thrive. It was joined by an Android version in 2017. ![]() So pretty soon after its development, we released LightBlue®, completely free, to the App Store. The app turned out to be an absolutely crucial element of our success, and we saw no reason to keep it to ourselves. There was a distinct lack of good tools available for this at the time, so the obvious thing to do was build one ourselves. Every embedded device we worked on needed the same basic tests-ensure all the intended BLE components (services, characteristics) were there, were set up correctly, and that we could successfully communicate with them. We dove in headfirst and were immediately swept up by the first development wave of BLE devices and the apps that would control them.Īs with any new technology, rapid prototyping was the name of the game, and we needed to bring all of our cards to the table. In 2011, Apple’s iPhone 4S arrived as the first mobile device to support Bluetooth 4.0 (aka Bluetooth Low Energy or Bluetooth Smart), and the rest of the mobile world soon followed. We were a young company carving out a determined niche in the exciting new world of Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE), the revolutionary new iteration of the Bluetooth spec released in 2010. We at Punch Through first began developing LightBlue® for iOS back in 2012 out of internal necessity.
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