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Can anyone point me towards a tried and tested development kit (board) for Bluetooth Low Energy?
I am especially interested in the proximity profile, and compatibility with smartphone (especially iPhones and Android devices - but also any other that would have BTLE).
Also, can you tell me which smartphones would support the proximity profile?
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Use of the Bluetooth LE APIs requires you to declare several permissions in your manifest file. Once your app has permission to use Bluetooth, your app needs to access the BluetoothAdapter and determine if Bluetooth is available on the device. If Bluetooth is available, the device will scan for nearby BLE devices.
Bluetooth Low Energy technology operates in the same spectrum range (the 2.400–2.4835 GHz ISM band) as classic Bluetooth technology, but uses a different set of channels. Instead of the classic Bluetooth 79 1-MHz channels, Bluetooth Low Energy has 40 2-MHz channels.
The Bluetooth V4. 0 specification, also known as Bluetooth Low Energy, was well suited for this task as a relatively short-range communication protocol (about 60 m, unobstructed) that utilizes broadcast messages to allow nearby devices to advertise their presence and the type of service(s) they provide.
If you are looking for API support for BT LE features then there is very little at the moment. For example, Android at API16 does not support. It is all rather disappointing so far. In many instances the HW supports it but the middleware / upper layers do not. There is SOME support on iOS (with Iphone4s) and with certain Moto phones (need the SDK add on) but it is limited. iOS is probably your best bet (who'd have thought that). Personally I am looking to use the GAP and GATT interface on Android (ICS/JB), which is mandatory for a BT4.0 listed device (such as the BT ICs in high end smartphones) but GAP does not seem to be exposed.
Oh, and if you need a dev kit (for SW dev then this link might help > http://blog.bluetooth-smart.com/2011/10/05/bluetooth-low-energy-development-kits-2/)
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