asked 2018-01-22 13:01:49 +0200
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Hi together, I am looking for a connection: sailfish X with the Nokia Steel series. Why it dosent support the bluetooth connection? Is it possible to connect the devices and work with the android Health app?
Thanks for your feedback! All the best! Florian
answered 2018-01-22 16:39:27 +0200
Sailfish OS (like most full blown GNU/Linux) uses BlueZ for accessing bluetooth peripheral.
Android normally uses a different stack : Bluedroid.
Currently, there's no "BlueZ to BlueDroid" translation layer in Alien-Dalvik to make any bluetooth peripheral directly available to Android Apps.
For some things for which there are standard protocols, there are workaround :
Saddly, in your case there's no such thing as "standard health devices" yet.
To be fair, there is quite a lot of stuff standardized in BLE. For example glucose monitors and heart rate sensors. I actually helped someone write a simple app that syncs with a glucose monitor in Qt/QML (it could be ported to SFOS rather quickly). More on that here: https://www.bluetooth.com/specifications/gatt/services
Not sure if smartwatches and fitness bands use the same, standardized GATT services, but if they do someone could probably write a generic "health" app for Sailfish OS that takes all these measurements and does some crazy stuff with it.
pisarz1958 ( 2018-01-22 21:21:53 +0200 )edit@pisarz1958 > regarding standadization :
Sorry, I expressed my self not clearly enough.
Yes, there are a lot of standardized way for device to talk over BLE in the health field (somewhat equivalent to the Classes in USB), and indeed there's even attempts to use them in Sailfish OS apps (Laufhelden's author plans to allow BLE heart-rate monitors).
The problem is that curently Android Apps cannot see Bluetooth directly (no BlueDroid), and there's no equivalent thing for health devices, as the standard keyboard APIs, Audio APIs, etc.
So an Android applications cannot just ask the system for a "plain health device" and let the system handle the connection, the same way that currently WhatsApp can ask for a plain keyboard and BlueZ handles the BT-HID, or Spotify simply asks for a plain audio out and BlueZ and Pulseaudio handle the BT-Media device.
DrYak ( 2018-01-23 12:50:14 +0200 )editanswered 2018-01-22 15:17:02 +0200
Unfortunately the Android app (Health Mate) cannot use Bluetooth in my Jolla C, I assume it's the same with Xperia X.
As a workaround I have installed Android in a second partition in my laptop (http://www.android-x86.org/) and sync my Nokia Steel from there.
answered 2019-09-12 21:44:10 +0200
If someone is still up to the task.. Whithings has an API doc here: http://developer.withings.com/oauth2/
answered 2019-09-13 10:31:05 +0200
Same with Xperia XA2. I use a Withings Pulse HR in sync with an Android Tablet. The Health Mate App on my XA2 with Sailfish OS does show me the before synced data. Yes, there are no notifications this way, but ok enough for me (-:
Asked: 2018-01-22 13:01:49 +0200
Seen: 1,818 times
Last updated: Sep 13 '19
Bluetooth works indeed very well with SFOS, also on Xperia where for example my NokiaSteel is found when scanning.
As it uses BTLE you need a special application to communicate with it.
I have had in mind to write a connector for NokiaSteel but have not yet had time to do it :)
juiceme ( 2018-01-22 15:04:40 +0200 )edit@juiceme Do you think it is possible to reverse-engineer the data exchange between Steel and the android app and write a Sailfish app with comparable functionailty?
thisisme ( 2018-01-22 15:18:32 +0200 )editSure, it is something I do all the time :)
juiceme ( 2018-01-22 15:31:37 +0200 )editGreat, I'd love to get some hints on that! :)
thisisme ( 2018-01-22 17:18:16 +0200 )edit