Mobile Sensors with Bluetooth

Introduction

The BLE shield is an Arduino shield that allows communication between an Arduino and one of the following: iPhone 5, iPhone 4S, iPad mini, iPad with Retina display (4th gen), iPad (3rd gen), or iPod touch (5th gen). We're planning to release a ManyLabs app for this shield that uses the WireGarden protocol, but it can be used currently with the app from RedBearLab.

Materials

BLE compatible device
Arduino
BLE Shield
Grove Shield
Grove sensors

We offer a few kits that include some of these materials:

Setup

Align the pins of the BLE shield with the headers on your Arduino and press down until the shield slides into place. Make sure the Default Handshake switch on the BLE shield is in the On position.
Align the pins of the Grove shield with the headers on the BLE shield and press down until the shield slides into place.
If you haven't already, install the WireGarden browser plugin. The Using Sensor documentation has more information.
Upload the RedBearLabs sample sketch to your Arduino using the Arduino IDE.
If you haven't already, install the RedBearLab BLEArduino app from the Apple iTunes Store.
With the Arduino powered, run the BLEArduino app and press Connect.
Choose the Arduino model you have connected to the shield. In the case of the kit, this is an Arduino Uno.

Usage

After choosing the model of Arduino, the BLEArduino app will present you with a list of the pins it can interact with. By default the pins are in Output mode. Here's a list of the modes you can choose depending on the pin:

Input: Read the value of a pin as either High or Low.
Output: Toggle the value of a pin to either High or Low.
Servo: Control the position of a servo attach to this pin.
PWM: Adjust the duty cycle of a PWM signal sent to this pin.
Analog: Read the value of a pin as between 0 and 1023.

The RedBearLabs app and sample sketch allow basic interaction with the Arduino and attached sensors using the above modes.