Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) support

[Sebnor31]

The current bluetooth VIs (as of LV 2014) don't support communication with the new protocol Bluetooth 4.0, referred as Bluetooth Low Energy (or Bluetooth Smart).

New VIs dedicated to BLE or adding support on current VIs is needed for all developers of this new bluetooth stack.

[frax84]

It's not totally correct. Labview uses the Bluetooth Windows stack so, actually, if you have a version of Windows that supports BLE (ex. Windows 8.1) Labview does support to BLE too (NOTE: Windows 7 does NOT support BLE).

The main problem in my opinion is that actually the bluetooth support is limited. Infact, not every device can be discovered or can be connected (smartphone and mainstream device usually can be used). With IoT a serious BLE support would be really interesting for developers.

[Sebnor31]

LabVIEW does use the Bluetooth Windows stack, indeed. This is why "standard" Bluetooth is supported by LabVIEW.

However, in the case of BLE, there are specific APIs and actually the entire protocol is fundamentally different than the standard one (GATT profiles, services, characteristics, etc.).

Therefore, BLE devices cannot communicate with the computer (or even be discovered) if the standard Bluetooth APIs are used, which is, I think, what LabVIEW has implemented.

I already tried to detect my smartphone using the provided Bluetooth VIs but only the standard Bluetooth devices are recognized, which led me to the aforementioned conclusion.

I am not an expert in the field, so let me know if I am missing something.

Thanks for your support!

[frax84]

You don't need to thank me. Perhaps it's me that has to thank you. Even if i studied the BLE protocol i thought that it was implemented in the standard stack of Windows. I know that BLE is a part of BT4.0 but i didn't know about a specif API in Windows. Are you sure about that?

I want to share with you my experience. I'm trying to create a VI able to communicate with a BLE device (Blendmicro by RedBearLabs). Actually Windows 8.1 + CSL BLE usb dongle is able to detect and pair/connect with the device. Due to the fact that Labview uses the Windows Stack at Winsock level i believed that i had to be able to discover the device, but, as you said in the previous post, i'm not even able to discover the device.

Of course, if it's how you say and only standard BT4.0 protocol API is implemented the situation is worse than i believed 😞

[Fonsi]

Hi guys,

Could we use the Bluegiga BLE dongle and their bluetooth library?.

http://digitalhacksblog.blogspot.com.es/2014/08/bluegiga-bled112-setup-on-windows-7.html

https://www.bluegiga.com/en-US/products/bled112-bluetooth-smart-dongle/#buynow

[frax84]

What you're asking is a bit off-topic. By the way, as we said in previous posts, Labview doesn't embed the BLE stack. You can probably use the Bluegiga device with Labview, but if you try to connect a not standard BT device you won't be able to discover it. This doesn't mean that it's impossible. You can try to import the functions you need using the "Call Library function" VI, but this is not a trivial matter.

Regards

[Sebnor31]

Hi Fonsi,

Using the Bluegiga BLE dongle would probably work but it seems you are using a way around to communicate with your BLE peripheral.

I would guess that their dongle would have a BLE enabled microcontroller that would use BLE protocol to communicate with BLE transmitter, but then would convert it into a serial communication with the computer.

Serial communication is a standard form of digital communication and LabVIEW and any other languages would perfectly support it.

This is actually what I ended up doing to go around the problem discussed in this post.

So, in a nutshell, yes you can use Bluegiga solution if you are fine having a USB dongle plugged in your computer.

Our discussion is about avoiding having any extra hardware/software in between the transmitter (BLE peripheral) and the computer. So, the program would directly communicate with the BLE device. LabVIEW does not provide this feature as of today (as far as I know).

[Fonsi]

thanks Sebnor31!. I`ll keep in mind.

Regards

[lolasue]

Hi Fonsi,

I have the same problem in that I am trying to connect a broadcom wiced BLE device to labview 2014 on my Windows 7. I have ordered a ble dongle for my pc. Would you mind pointing me in the right direction in terms of converting the ble signal into serial communication? From there I will connect with labview. My issue is that I need to see the data being measured in real time. I dont mind having hardware between the transmitter and the pc.

[Fonsi]

Hi Suzanne,

I didnt get the dongle i posted previously. It was one possibility and in the link its showed. I prefer to install W10 and use commun dongle BLE. Im sorry.

Regards.

[lolasue]

Hi Fonsi,

So please confirm that when you used Windows 10, that Labview was then able to communicate with your BLE device?