WebBLE Chrome on Android 12 not recognizing BLE device

I have recently installed a Saber with an BT909 Bluetooth device.
It is running on a ProffieV2.2, OS6.7. Using the latest ProffieWorkbench web-app, I can connect via Bluetooth on my Win10 laptop, on my older Android 10 based phone it is also working flawless, but on the customers phone (Android 12) the device is recognised under the Bluetooth devices, but chrome doesn’t show the device when using the Proffieworkbench.

WebBLE Chrome on Android 12 not recognizing device

A little bit of googling, shows that Android 12 might be the culprit. Does anybody else experience this problem, or even better, has a solution how to fix this problem?

I can try this out later today on my android 12 device.

Interestingly, I can not connect to mine with ANY device. 2 computers, Android 12, nor iOS via Forcesync.
Doesn’t show up anywhere as a device to connect to.
It used to, and this saber has been sitting on the bench ever since last played with (my V3 board build).
USB works fine.
Is there anything in Serial Monitor that could check things out?

If it doesn’t show up, then the problem isn’t with proffieOS, but with the BT board, or possibly with it’s power. ProffieOS isn’t really involved in setting up the connection, so that part should work even if the proffieboard/proffieos wasn’t even there.

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So I tried this out, and it does indeed seem to not work on Android 12.
From what I can tell, Android has a list of devices that it considers location beacons, and only apps that have “fine location” access are allowed to access those devices, and only if they set a specific flag in the request made when scanning for bluetooth devices. Chrome doesn’t want to tell websites any more location information than it already does, so it does not set this flag.

I’m not sure I understand why the feasycom bt-630 / bt-909 would be on that list of location beacons though. it seems like a bug to me. I filed bugs against chrome and android for this, hopefully the relevant people will either fix the problem or let me know how to work around it.

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So it seems that the feasycom bluetooth modules transmit an iBeacon tag code in the “manufacturer data” section during initial scan. The data from my BT-630 looks like this:

0x004c 0x0215fda50693a4e24fb1afcfc6eb07647825275165c1c6	

To make these boards work with Android 12, they would need a different firmware that doesn’t do this.

@ShtokyD Would you be able to contact FeasyCOM and see if they have a firmware available that can disable the iBeacon payload?

What does the ForceSync app say? On which screen it stops working? Do you see the devices on the first “Connect” screen?

Ok, I’ll ask.

Are there alternative BT modules other than the BT-630 an BT-909, that are known to work with Proffieboards, Android12 and the WebBLE ProffiesOS workbench?

I’m not aware of any, but that doesn’t mean they don’t exist.

In the app.html there are definitions for Uarts (uuid) for

  • Nordic
  • ISSC
  • HM-10
  • Laird BL600

Have you tested any of these modules? Otherwise I am going to order a bunch of them and try which of these modules works on Android 12.
HC-09 and the CC2540 based modules also look prommessing.

What would the requirements be for the BLE gatt (profile, service, characteristic) and resulting uuid to work with the WebBLE protocol? Is it the SPP protocol that is used?

I found these gatt IDs in another WebBLE serial thingy and copied them. The only other board I have tested is the redbear Nano 2, but it isn’t being made anymore AFAIK.

I think ShtokyD has tested some other boards, but I don’t know which ones.

Ultimately I can make the proffieos workbench work with almost any set of gatt IDs, as long as I know what they are and how they work. The ProffieOS workbench never uses SPP though, as that is not accessible from a web browser. Not sure if ShtokyD’s app uses SPP or not.

I have been testing the following devices;

HC-08 BT4.0: very hard to get working (uuids) and does not perform well with the Webapp

BLE-CC41A / HM-10, BT4.0; Works straight out of the box, but is slow to load preset list

HC-42 BT5.0: Works straight out of the box after modifying the baudrate from 9600 (default) to 115200, Works on Win10, IOS (with WebBLE browser) and Android 12.

For now I am going to use the HC-42 for future project, until a solution is found for the BT603 and BT909 modules.

My red bear nano2s have been working great. I know theyre old, but still working in my 3 sabers that have them.

The Redbear Nano’s are unfortunately no longer produced … :slightly_frowning_face:

I have 4 left including the programming sled! I have never had success with the feasycoms or forcesynch on android.