Support for bonding

[DoruAdryan]

Is there a plan for supporting bonding (pairing) with a bluetooth device gracefully? I think that at connect() time or later on, when reading / writing a characteristic (which could respond with INSUFFICIENT_AUTHENTICATION) would have to do it.
I saw that Advertisement has a BondState property.

[twyatt]

It isn't on the short-term roadmap but I've been trying to prioritize GitHub issues by the number of 👍  they have. So, if there are others who also need this feature (and "up vote" it) then I'd be happy to tackle it sooner rather than later.

Long-term I would like to support it, so it will come eventually. Also happy to accept PRs. 😉

[twyatt]

This issue appears to be getting a fair amount of attention (👍 ) so I'll start trying to dedicate time to researching/brainstorming this integration.

[twyatt]

Found the following articles that offer awesome insight into the bonding process:

• Making Android BLE work — part 4
• The Ultimate Guide to Android Bluetooth Low Energy

Does anyone have any recommendations on a BLE peripheral (that needs/supports bonding) that I can purchase to start developing against?

[DoruAdryan]

There are multiple medical devices that I've come across requiring pairing:
Thermometer (requires pairing at reading measurements stage, not when connecting to it),
Pulse Oximeter
but as mentioned in those articles you posted, the pairing process could be started by the OS at different moments of communication to the bluetooth device, answering with GATT_STATUS - INSUFFICIENT_AUTHENTICATION or GATT_INSUFFICIENT_ENCRYPTION.

[twyatt]

Quick update on this, I haven't made any real progress, but I have acquired both the Thermometer and Pulse Oximeter for when I do have time to investigate this further. Thanks @DoruAdryan for the recommendations.

[WildStudio]

Hey @twyatt any real advance on this? I would suggest acquiring a stater kit like the one silicon labs have: https://www.silabs.com/development-tools/wireless/bluetooth/bgx220p-bluetooth-xpress-starter-kit
Do you think you need some support on this?

[twyatt]

Unfortunately no real progress on this yet, though I am eager to get started on it once I have a free moment — hopefully sooner rather than later.

Do you think you need some support on this?

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Most helpful would be determining if JavaScript and Apple platforms support bonding, and then finding any simple sample code for bonding for any of the platforms (Android, JavaScript, Apple).

Also, identifying failure cases, i.e. when calling a function for bonding, when something goes wrong: how does it go wrong (on each platform)? — are exceptions thrown, or: are callbacks called, etc.

PRs are always welcome, or discussions can also be started to brainstorm what the shape of the Kable API should be for bonding.

[twyatt]

I would suggest acquiring a stater kit like the one silicon labs have: https://www.silabs.com/development-tools/wireless/bluetooth/bgx220p-bluetooth-xpress-starter-kit

@WildStudio Does the starter kit support BLE bonding out-of-the-box, or does it have to be programmed/configured for bonding?

[SkyleKayma]

Has there been any progress on this part one year later ?
I don't think this has been implemented, or else I missed it.
It's the only thing currently preventing me from using this lib, even though it's really great!

[twyatt]

Unfortunately I've been really busy with projects at work, and we don't have an immediate need for bonding so I haven't been able to prioritize this effort.

I know this is the most requested feature, so I would love to make some progress on it.

Some things that would really help out in the effort is:

• Create some basic sample apps for each platform that perform bonding (without Kable)
  • Would help demonstrate all the moving parts that will be needed and help drive decisions about how to make a Coroutines based API in Kable
• Alternatively, we could start a discussion on what the shape of the API should be
  • I have no experience around performing bonding on any of the platforms, so getting some general understanding (outline) of what is involved w/ the process would be super helpful
  • If people have worked w/ bonding before, maybe some interfaces (written in pseudo-Kotlin code) of what they imagine the API could look like, could help kick off this effort

[SkyleKayma]

Whenever I've done pairing it's by using the Nordic library (https://github.com/NordicSemiconductor/Android-BLE-Library), I've never implemented it from scratch. So I may not be in the best position to provide a test sample.
But I will continue to follow this library and its development closely.