AndroidBluetoothConnection

Trying to understand a little bit more about how Bluetooth protocol works on Android devices, I've built this simple Android library.

It is based on Android official documentation (and also based on their example: Bluetooth Chat).

This repository is composed by 3 diferent projects:

• BluetoothConnection: Bluetooth simple library for Android devices.
• BluetoothConnectionSample: Simple application to show how the library must be implemented/used in any Android code.
• BluetoothServer: Windows Bluetooth Server (to test the app or build your own system/functionality).

BluetoothConnection

Simple Android Bluetooth library for adding Bluetooth capabilities to your application. This library is composed by the following elements:

• BluetoothConnection provides all methods for Bluetooth connection.
• BluetoothService manages configuration and management of Bluetooth conections. It has a thread to make connections and other thread for established connections.
• DeviceListActivity show to the user all available Bluetooth devices. It could not be used if the Bluetooth connection has been done by pairing the Bluetooth device against Android Settings.

BluetoothConnectionSample

For implementing the Bluetooth connection on your application you have to configure some aspects. I will suppose that the IDE is Eclipse.

• First of all, you must import BluetoothConnection project to your workspace.
• Once it has been imported, make sure that it has been configured as library (go to Project->Properties (or Alt+Enter), in Android make sure Is library is checked).
• Now you have to add the project as library to your current project (that you want to add bluetooth capabilities). Go to Project->Properties (or Alt+Enter), in Android press Add... button and select BluetoothConnection.
• If you want to use DeviceListActivity you need to add it to your AndroidManifest.xml file. To do that, introduce a new activity like this:

<activity android:name="com.dsaiztc.bluetoothconnection.DeviceListActivity" 
			 android:configChanges="orientation|keyboardHidden" 
			 android:label="@string/select_device" 
			 android:theme="@android:style/Theme.Holo.Dialog" />

• Moreover, in your principal Activity you have to add a BluetoothConnection atribute, with your Activity context as input parameter. You must override some methods in this Activity. Those methods are:

onStart() 
onDestroy() 
onActivityResult(...)

I give you an example for clarify that:

@Override public void onStart() 
{ 
	super.onStart(); 
	myBluetoothConnection.onStart();
}

Once these stuff has been done, the main methods you will probably use are:

scanForDevices(int request) // Starts bluetooth devices list view
sendMessage(String message) // Send a message against bluetooth connection

Received messages are treated by a Handler in BluetoothConnection. If you want to finish the conection, just make a call to onDestroy() method of BluetoothConnection. If you have any doubts, please take a look to the sample code.

BluetoothServer

That Bluetooth server is based on Luu Gia Thuy web: Simple Android and Java Bluetooth Application (little modifications has been done).

It uses a Windows Java library for Bluetooth communication called Bluecove, you can download the jar file bluecove-2.1.1-SNAPSHOT.jar on the download site and import it to your project.

As I used it, the server waits for a connection from the phone, and when the connection has been done, it waits for receiving whatever you code to process.

About the repository

Please, feel free to modify whatever you want to improve this repository. I've just "adapted" the original sample code from Google, so it doesn't want to be a perfect implementation or achieve the best Bluetooth performance connection.

If you consider that is the worst implementation you have ever seen, please let me know, I will be pleased to learn how to improve my code or how to do things better.

Thanks in advance to all.