BLE Scan Interval Windows 10

Question

Is there any way to adjust the BLE advertisement scanning interval on Windows 10 when using Windows.Devices.Bluetooth.Advertisement.BluetoothLEAdvertisementWatcher? When scanning on Android, I see the the advertisements every 100ms, but on Windows 10 using C# I am only getting a BluetoothLEAdvertisementWatcher.Received event thrown every maybe 700ms.

Answer 1

I guess not.

The scan parameters are hardcoded to a scan interval of 118.125 ms and scan window of 18.125 ms.

That's why you only get 1/7 of all packets (since 18.125 / 118.125 is ~1/7).

You can however use DeviceIoControl to do it more low level. Here is an example. You have to run this in parallel to your BluetoothLEAdvertisementWatcher (for example BetterScanner.StartScanner(0, 29, 29)). It seems Windows always picks the "best" parameters if two scanners are active at the same time.

DeviceIoControl never returns so I run it in a separate thread. If you need to be able to cancel the scanning you have to use overlapped io to be able to execue CancelIoEx. This code doesn't check for errors, so beware.

using System;
using System.Runtime.InteropServices;
using System.Threading;

class BetterScanner {
    /// <summary>
    /// The BLUETOOTH_FIND_RADIO_PARAMS structure facilitates enumerating installed Bluetooth radios.
    /// </summary>
    [StructLayout(LayoutKind.Sequential)]
    private struct BLUETOOTH_FIND_RADIO_PARAM
    {
        internal UInt32 dwSize;
        internal void Initialize()
        {
            this.dwSize = (UInt32)Marshal.SizeOf(typeof(BLUETOOTH_FIND_RADIO_PARAM));
        }
    }

    /// <summary>
    /// Closes an open object handle.
    /// </summary>
    /// <param name="handle">[In] A valid handle to an open object.</param>
    /// <returns>If the function succeeds, the return value is nonzero. If the function fails, the return value is zero. To get extended error information, call GetLastError.</returns>
    [DllImport("Kernel32.dll", SetLastError = true)]
    static extern bool CloseHandle(IntPtr handle);

    /// <summary>
    /// Finds the first bluetooth radio present in device manager
    /// </summary>
    /// <param name="pbtfrp">Pointer to a BLUETOOTH_FIND_RADIO_PARAMS structure</param>
    /// <param name="phRadio">Pointer to where the first enumerated radio handle will be returned. When no longer needed, this handle must be closed via CloseHandle.</param>
    /// <returns>In addition to the handle indicated by phRadio, calling this function will also create a HBLUETOOTH_RADIO_FIND handle for use with the BluetoothFindNextRadio function.
    /// When this handle is no longer needed, it must be closed via the BluetoothFindRadioClose.
    /// Returns NULL upon failure. Call the GetLastError function for more information on the error. The following table describe common errors:</returns>
    [DllImport("irprops.cpl", SetLastError = true)]
    static extern IntPtr BluetoothFindFirstRadio(ref BLUETOOTH_FIND_RADIO_PARAM pbtfrp, out IntPtr phRadio);

    [StructLayout(LayoutKind.Sequential)]
    private struct LE_SCAN_REQUEST
    {
        internal int scanType;
        internal ushort scanInterval;
        internal ushort scanWindow;
    }

    [DllImport("kernel32.dll", ExactSpelling = true, SetLastError = true, CharSet = CharSet.Auto)]
    static extern bool DeviceIoControl(IntPtr hDevice, uint dwIoControlCode,
    ref LE_SCAN_REQUEST lpInBuffer, uint nInBufferSize,
    IntPtr lpOutBuffer, uint nOutBufferSize,
    out uint lpBytesReturned, IntPtr lpOverlapped);

    /// <summary>
    /// Starts scanning for LE devices.
    /// Example: BetterScanner.StartScanner(0, 29, 29)
    /// </summary>
    /// <param name="scanType">0 = Passive, 1 = Active</param>
    /// <param name="scanInterval">Interval in 0.625 ms units</param>
    /// <param name="scanWindow">Window in 0.625 ms units</param>
    public static void StartScanner(int scanType, ushort scanInterval, ushort scanWindow)
    {
        var thread = new Thread(() =>
        {
            BLUETOOTH_FIND_RADIO_PARAM param = new BLUETOOTH_FIND_RADIO_PARAM();
            param.Initialize();
            IntPtr handle;
            BluetoothFindFirstRadio(ref param, out handle);
            uint outsize;
            LE_SCAN_REQUEST req = new LE_SCAN_REQUEST { scanType = scanType, scanInterval = scanInterval, scanWindow = scanWindow };
            DeviceIoControl(handle, 0x41118c, ref req, 8, IntPtr.Zero, 0, out outsize, IntPtr.Zero);
        });
        thread.Start();
    }
}