Argon BLE as peripheral - connect to it using its MAC address

Firmware
1

I'm using an Argon as a peripheral BLE device. I can use iOS apps such as BLE Scanner and Bluefruit to connect to it all day - no problem with reads/writes etc. Works great.

Next, I have a Boron which is currently connecting to a third-party peripheral using that device's BLE MAC address (i.e. I do not use scan in the Boron) and after connecting it polls for data. Works great.

I grabbed the BLE MAC address from the Argon device using BLE.address() and
I added this address to the Boron polling list, but it simply won't connect.

Below I even byte swapped address [0] into [1] to make sure that wasn't an issue.
BleAddress ShellyAddress[2] = {"1D3FB6A1F9C7","C7F9A1B63F1D"}
peer = BLE.connect(ShellyAddress[0]);
peer = BLE.connect(ShellyAddress[1]);

It just doesn't connect. Is there something that needs to be performed on the Argon during setup to allow it to be connected to via its MAC address?

2

When you specify the BLE MAC address using a string, it defaults to type PUBLIC, and I presume the address you are connecting to is not public. In BLE, public means the address is registered with IEEE.

This page seems to be a good summary of address types.

These are the available types:

enum class BleAddressType : uint8_t {
    PUBLIC                          = BLE_SIG_ADDR_TYPE_PUBLIC,
    RANDOM_STATIC                   = BLE_SIG_ADDR_TYPE_RANDOM_STATIC,
    RANDOM_PRIVATE_RESOLVABLE       = BLE_SIG_ADDR_TYPE_RANDOM_PRIVATE_RESOLVABLE,
    RANDOM_PRIVATE_NON_RESOLVABLE   = BLE_SIG_ADDR_TYPE_RANDOM_PRIVATE_NON_RESOLVABLE
};

These are the available BLEAddress constructors:

    BleAddress(const hal_ble_addr_t& addr);
    BleAddress(const uint8_t addr[BLE_SIG_ADDR_LEN], BleAddressType type = BleAddressType::PUBLIC);
    BleAddress(const char* address, BleAddressType type = BleAddressType::PUBLIC);
    BleAddress(const String& address, BleAddressType type = BleAddressType::PUBLIC);
1 Like
3

Thanks Rick!

Adding BleAddressType::RANDOM_STATIC did the trick on the central side. All is connecting.

A separate question: I see that the Argon by default is also showing uuid's starting with 6FA90003. I see that these are Particle BLE specific (google). Not that it matters, but any way to get rid of them? I tried BleAdvertisingData clear(). It did not work, and I cant see anything else that might do it.

Thanks so much for your help!

4

Are you seeing those services when the device is in normal operating mode? They should only appear when the device is in listening mode (blinking dark blue) so the Wi-Fi can be configured over BLE. You can also use up provisioning mode which uses your own UUIDs instead of the Particle UUIDs.

1 Like
5

Yes, normal operating mode breathing cyan. They are always present alongside the uuids Iā€™m adding (characteristics). I even tried not adding mine and they (particle ones) appeared as soon as I advertised data.

6

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