Notes to myself: Test a Bluetooth Low Energy device on Raspberry Pi, the quick way

Testing if the new nRF8001-based Mosquino BLE shield I built actually works.
With the unmodified library and example code, it purports itself to the a Nordic heartrate monitor.

Much of the below based on Michael Saunby’s blog post on checking out a TI SensorTag.

Install bluez and hcitool (plus any dependencies). As of today, current version available from a stock raspbian is 4.99-2. NOTE: “gksu synaptic” from the console to get a working graphical package manager, if you’re into that sort of thing. (“Gtk-WARNING **: cannot open display: :0” probably means you used sudo instead of gksu; bad dog.)

Then…

$ sudo hcitool hci0 up
$ sudo hcitool lescan

If all goes well, output like:

LE Scan …
DF:32:3A:73:A3:1C Nordic HRM V1.0
DF:32:3A:73:A3:1C (unknown)

If that’s your device, congratulations, it’s working!

Connecting to it…

$ gatttool -b DF:32:3A:73:A3:1C –interactive
[ ][DF:32:3A:73:A3:1C][LE]> connect
[CON][DF:32:3A:73:A3:1C][LE]> char-read-hnd 0x01
[CON][DF:32:3A:73:A3:1C][LE]>
Characteristic value/descriptor: 00 18
[CON][DF:32:3A:73:A3:1C][LE]>

Don’t ask me how to find out the handles your device supports or what the resulting data means; that’s an exploration for another day…

Bonus trick: make the computer beep everytime it gets an advertising packet:

$ sudo stdbuf -oL hcitool -i hci0 lescan | while read; do beep -l 20 -f 1000; done

Good for range testing (I have not tested it).