ROADMAP

[Gadgetoid]

I have been mostly prodding at this GitHub repository to see what Blurtooth can do - https://github.com/oesmith/gatt-xml/blob/master/

Some notable services that Enviro could integrate:

• org.bluetooth.service.current_time and org.bluetooth.service.reference_time_update - since it's outside the scope of Enviro BLE to use WiFi, perhaps we can set the time from a host via Bluetooth so sensors can periodically sleep
• org.bluetooth.service.automation_io - generic digital/analog IO access (trigger a remote plant watering event on Grow for example)
• org.bluetooth.service.battery_service - battery monitoring, I think this is self-explanatory
• org.bluetooth.service.alert_notification - is this a sensible way to broadcast watering events, sensor low/high triggers?

Some general questions:

• How tolerant can a Bluetooth client be to devices sleeping/waking on a schedule to save battery?
• Would we need some way to notify the server device that we're satisfied with our readings, and that it can go back to sleep?
• Are there any bugs in Enviro (https://github.com/pimoroni/enviro/issues) that need fixed here?

Are there any features we should incorporate? Bearing in mind the KISS principle here.

[kevinmcaleer]

BLE Beacon?

Can pico W powered ble be used to create beacons for rough positioning? I'm thinking from a robot point of view, the enviros I use are typically in fixed positions from each other, so if I could use the time of flight of a Bluetooth signal I should be able to work out how far a robot has travelled. Or I might be talking out of my kevsrobots branded hat.

[Gadgetoid]

Something about indoor positioning was definitely in the XML nightmare I was browsing in lieu of braving the specs - https://github.com/oesmith/gatt-xml/blob/master/org.bluetooth.service.indoor_positioning.xml. I did wonder if it would be useful for anything. I don't think it costs much in terms of RAM to throw up another few services/characteristics. Especially if they don't require ongoing updates.

I guess devices that use these for positioning rely on the signal strength and some kind of location tagging- looks like latitude and longitude which might be a bit of an ask for household positioning. Though if all your boards have a unique ID (the Pi's flash serial number) and you know roughly where they are (fixed locations) then there might already be enough information to do triangulation from just the "device information" characteristic without having to load the devices down with even more services.

Definitely some research required here! But the linked XML file gives some insight into what kind of data a location beacon would share. Stuff like floor number makes sense to me, Lat/Lon seem somewhat optimistic. I guess that's why there's a confidence value 😆