ble-tools

ble-tools

Software tool to test BLE Devices

• Build platform: OS X
• Host platform: OS X

Usage

The device supports 4 basic modes:

1. Scan for devices
2. Connect to specific device
3. Read XML input file that defines a device
4. Compare Physical Device with XML definitions

The basic modes of usage for ble-tools can be seen below:

Usage: ./ble-tools [COMMAND] [<options>]
scan
  -timeout timeout
    	scan timeout duration in seconds (default 12s)
connect
  -device Device Name
    	BLE Device Name
  -id mfg data
    	Last 3 hex bytes of mfg data to uniquely identify device
  -xmlOut
    	generate an xml output
read
  -file xml file
    	xml file to be parsed
compare
  -device Device Name
    	BLE Device Name
  -file XML file
    	XML file to compare against
  -id mfg data
    	Last 3 hex bytes of mfg data to uniquely identify device

Scan

This runs a passive scan of the neighboring environment for the duration of time specified with the timeout flag. By default, this timeout is 12s. This is the maximum advertising timeout specified in the BLE Specification. The minimum allowed timeout value is 1s. After a scan is completed, a numbered list of discovered devices is displayed. The user can select the device to connect to by entering the index of the device. An example of a scan list is shown below.

Following Devices discovered:
    Index    Device Name
     0   estimote-2892c4
     1   Apple TV-060090
     2   T2-000017
     3   Unknown-d1c887
     4   Dropcam-0ff4c7
     5   Unknown-3d05a1
     6   estimote-91c4c4
     7   Aug-d10100
     8   BCD Sensalite-000094
Enter Device to connect to: 2
Generate XML after discovery? (y/n) [n]:

Upon making a selection, the user is prompted whether they would like an XML output of the device's services and characteristics to be saved. If desired, this is generated after connecting to the device, and saved in the XmlOutputs folder.

Connect

Many devices announce their names in the LocalName field of the BLE advertisement. If one already knows this name, and would like to connect to the device without having to explicitly scan the environment, this would be the preferred mode to use. The name of the device is specified in the mandatory field of device. For further fine-grained connection options, one can also specify the last three bytes of the manufacturing data from the advertisement in the optional id field. Finally, if one would like a record of the device's services and characteristics a true/false field of xmlOut can be used as well. By default this option is set to false.

Custom Services/Characteristics

Not all devices use the standard Bluetooth specified service/characteristic UUIDs. To help in making this information readable two user generated files are included, viz CustomServices.csv and CustomCharacteristics.csv. These are CSV files that have a mapping of UUID to a Human Readable Service or Characteristic name, respectively. Currently this only contains mappings for devices built here at BCD, but it can grow with time as this tool hopefully gets used. Another use would be populating it with the Apple UUIDs defined in the HomeKit Specification.

Read

Once an xml file of the device's services and characteristics has already been generated, either by this tool, or by other means, this tool can parse the information in the file and display it in a human readable format. The file to be read is passed in via the mandatory option of file.

An XML file representing the device consists of one or many services, each of which can contain several characteristics. The properties of each characteristic can be obtained from the Bluetooth website. A snippet of one device would look like this.

<?xml  version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<device name="Ly01">
<service name="LY-01 Service" uuid="1c68b3fad44343659e1cb22f44eb0816">
    <characteristic name="Light Control" uuid="447c291d5318420b980a8f33e22c3744">
        <requirement>Mandatory</requirement>
        <Properties>
            <Read>Mandatory</Read>
            <Write>Mandatory</Write>
            <WriteWithoutResponse>Excluded</WriteWithoutResponse>
            <SignedWrite>Excluded</SignedWrite>
            <ReliableWrite>Excluded</ReliableWrite>
            <Notify>Mandatory</Notify>
            <Indicate>Mandatory</Indicate>
            <WritableAuxilliaries>Excluded</WritableAuxilliaries>
            <Broadcast>Excluded</Broadcast>
        </Properties>
    </characteristic>
</service> 
</device>

Compare

While building a device, its always useful to ensure that the BLE interface on the device matches what was specified in the interface design document. The compare mode helps achieve this goal. This mode is a combination of the read and connect modes described above. The tool will read the file specified, and connect to the device in question. It will then scan the device, and perform a property by property comparison across all characteristics and services. All inconsistencies detected will be reported after disconnection from the device. An example of some errors that can be reported are:

Char Properties do not match. 
     Expected ' read  ' but found ' read notify  '

Expected 9 characteristics but found 8

Expected 4 services but found 3

Device did not match specified document

Local build

• Ensure the repository is checked out in $GOPATH/src/github.com/bcdevices/ble-tools

• In toplevel directory, execute:

    make clean
    make
  

to end up with the build artifacts in the $GOPATH/bin folder.

Prerequisites

• Apple Mac computer running OS X
• OS X: Xcode Command Line Tools
• Go 1.6