Communicate between iOS app and Raspberry Pi via Bluetooth

Question

I'm trying to communicate between an iOS app and Raspberry Pi using Bluetooth. The Raspberry Pi is using a Python script for this purpose.

I was originally using the PyBluez library, however this does not support Bluetooth LE and thus can't be used with CoreBluetooth on iOS.
My next solution was to use the private BluetoothManager framework to communicate with the Pi, but this doesn't work on iOS 7.

I've researched a bit more and have seen suggestions for manually sending/receiving LE packets with PyBluez, but this seems incredibly complex and I really have no idea where to start.

So at the moment, I'm stuck. I need either:

• A solution to communicate with a non-LE Bluetooth device via iOS, or
• A solution for advertising and communicating as a LE device on the Raspberry Pi via Python

Answer 1

One option is to buy a USB dongle with a BLE stack in it already.

We have used the Laird BL620-USB, flashed with BL600 firmware to operate as a BLE peripheral.

Having BLE stack in the dongle means it can be communicated with from the Raspberry Pi like a simple USB serial port, without using any linux Bluetooth stack.

BL600 includes the Nordic / Laird proprietary Virtual Serial Port Profile already, so you can achieve the simplicity similar to the classic Bluetooth SPP, even when communicating to an iOS device.

Laird will provide iOS and Android code to use the VSP on the mobile side.

Other BLE module makers probably do the same.