BLE Connector Configuration

This guide will help you to get familiar with BLE connector configuration for ThingsBoard IoT Gateway. Use general configuration to enable this extension. We will describe connector configuration file below.

BLE connector need some system libraries, to install them please select version of package manager in your system below and run a command to install libraries:
**

| APT-GET |
YUM
| | :—-: | :—-: |

APT-GET
You should install some system libraries for using BLE Connector and bluepy library for python.
Just copy following commands and run them:
This command will install required libraries:

sudo apt-get install -y libglib2.0-dev zlib1g-dev

This command will install bluepy library:

sudo pip3 install bluepy

YUM
You should install some system libraries for using BLE Connector and bluepy library for python.
Just copy following commands and run them:
This command will install required libraries:

sudo yum groupinstall -y "development tools"

This command will install bluepy library:

sudo pip3 install bluepy

Example of BLE Connector config file. Press to expand.

{
    "name": "BLE Connector",
    "rescanIntervalSeconds": 100,
    "checkIntervalSeconds": 100,
    "scanTimeSeconds": 5,
    "passiveScanMode": true,
    "devices": [
        {
            "name": "Temperature and humidity sensor",
            "MACAddress": "4C:65:A8:DF:85:C0",
            "telemetry": [
                {
                    "key": "temperature",
                    "method": "notify",
                    "characteristicUUID": "226CAA55-6476-4566-7562-66734470666D",
                    "byteFrom": 2,
                    "byteTo": 6
                },
                {
                    "key": "humidity",
                    "method": "notify",
                    "characteristicUUID": "226CAA55-6476-4566-7562-66734470666D",
                    "byteFrom": 9,
                    "byteTo": 13
                }
            ],
            "attributes": [
                {
                    "key": "name",
                    "characteristicUUID": "00002A00-0000-1000-8000-00805F9B34FB",
                    "method": "read",
                    "byteFrom": 0,
                    "byteTo": -1
                }
            ],
            "attributeUpdates": [
                {
                    "attributeOnThingsBoard": "sharedName",
                    "characteristicUUID": "00002A00-0000-1000-8000-00805F9B34FB"
                }
            ],
            "serverSideRpc": [
                {
                    "methodRPC": "sharedName",
                    "withResponse": true,
                    "characteristicUUID": "00002A00-0000-1000-8000-00805F9B34FB",
                    "methodProcessing": "write"
                }
            ]
        }
    ]
}

Main section

This section contains general settings for the connector.

This part of configuration will look like:

{
    "name": "BLE Connector",
    "rescanIntervalSeconds": 100,
    "checkIntervalSeconds": 100,
    "scanTimeSeconds": 5,
    "passiveScanMode": true,
    "devices": [
                ...
                ]
}

Device object subsection

This subsection contains general settings for the device and subsections for processing data.

This part of configuration will look like:

{
            "name": "Temperature and humidity sensor",
            "MACAddress": "4C:65:A8:DF:85:C0",
            "telemetry": [
                          ...
                          ],
            "attributes": [
                          ...
                          ],
            "attributeUpdates": [
                          ...
                          ],
            "serverSideRpc": [
                          ...
                          ]
        }

Subsection telemetry

This subsection contains general settings for the processing data interpreted as telemetry.

This part of configuration will look like:

{
                    "key": "temperature",
                    "method": "notify",
                    "characteristicUUID": "226CAA55-6476-4566-7562-66734470666D",
                    "byteFrom": 2,
                    "byteTo": 6
                },

The values shown in the table above may differ in your configuration.
– For example response from device is bytes string like b’T=54.7 H=37.0’, in this case – 54.7 interpreted as value of key.
If you need to interpreted full response as value use byteFrom: 0 and byteTo: -1.

Subsection attributes

This subsection contains general settings for the processing data interpreted as attributes.

This part of configuration will look like:

{
                    "key": "name",
                    "characteristicUUID": "00002A00-0000-1000-8000-00805F9B34FB",
                    "method": "read",
                    "byteFrom": 0,
                    "byteTo": -1
                }

The values shown in the table above may differ in your configuration.
– For example response from device is bytes string like b’Coolest device’, in this case – Coolest device interpreted as value of key.
If you need to interpreted full response as value use byteFrom: 0 and byteTo: -1**.

Subsection attributeUpdates

This subsection contains settings for the processing attributeUpdate requests from ThingsBoard.

This part of configuration will look like:

{
                    "attributeOnThingsBoard": "sharedName",
                    "characteristicUUID": "00002A00-0000-1000-8000-00805F9B34FB"
                }

Subsection serverSideRpc

This subsection contains settings for the processing RPC requests from ThingsBoard.

This part of configuration will look like:

{
                    "methodRPC": "rpcMethod1",
                    "withResponse": true,
                    "characteristicUUID": "00002A00-0000-1000-8000-00805F9B34FB",
                    "methodProcessing": "read"
                }

Next steps

Explore guides related to main ThingsBoard features:

• Connect BLE sensor - how to connect BLE sensor using ThingsBoard IoT Gateway
• Data Visualization - how to visualize collected data.
• Device attributes - how to use device attributes.
• Telemetry data collection - how to collect telemetry data.
• Using RPC capabilities - how to send commands to/from devices.
• Rule Engine - how to use rule engine to analyze data from devices.