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**Overview of devices known so far: Nexus 6, Nexus 9, Moto E 4G LTE, LG G4, Galaxy S6, Samsung Galaxy S5 (model SM-G900M), Nexus 5X, Sony Xperia Z5 Compact, Samsung Galaxy Tab S2 **

** Also see https://altbeacon.github.io/android-beacon-library/beacon-transmitter-devices.html **

One of the new features of the Android 5 release is support for Bluetooth Low Energy peripheral mode. While it is promoted to work independent of the used device, it seems to be chipset dependent (see the isMultiAdvertisementSupported() function in BluetoothAdapter.java).

It is working for the Nexus 5, but not for the Nexus 7 (called a bug in BLE peripheral support Android-L example, but it might never work because of its chipset?). Also https://code.google.com/p/android-developer-preview/issues/detail?id=589 does not give conclusive statements.

My concern is that, as many older devices are expected to get Android 5, only the newest tablets (and relatively new phones) will support BLE peripheral mode. This might be unclear to the end-user of apps relying on this new Android 5 feature.

For me it is very unclear which chipsets/devices, that will eventually get Android 5, will support the BLE peripheral mode. Anyone who can give me any insights on this? Which chipsets will support the BLE peripheral mode? More specifically, as many of our customers have a Nexus 7 (2013), will the Nexus 7 ever get supported?

Edit 19-2-2015: Since December 2014 it is not supported anymore for the Nexus 5, only Nexus 6 and 9 seem to have support for BLE Peripheral Mode/ Advertising. Hope the number of devices supporting this will significantly increase in the near future.

More information and discussion here: https://code.google.com/p/android-developer-preview/issues/detail?id=1570

Edit 6-3-2015: Added overview for quick reference

Edit 17-2-2016: Added some devices that I've checked myself but were not in any of the other lists

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  • related : http://stackoverflow.com/questions/20669590/ble-on-nexus-7-me370t-with-android-4-4-2 – ben75 Oct 21 '14 at 19:30
  • Thanks for the pointer, ben75! So in general, even if the chipset would support BLE, software could limit its use due to lack of certification... Hope the Nexus 7 will be recertified... – MStone Oct 22 '14 at 13:09
  • The Moto E 4G LTE supports BLE advertising. So I got that going for me. – ludwigmace Mar 04 '15 at 19:43
  • @MStone have you tried the MOTO G serials? It's shipped with android 5, I have no approach to get a MOTO E 4g in my country, and the nexus 6 is too much expensive. – Shawn Apr 11 '15 at 14:42
  • Hi Shawn, I'm currently playing around with the Moto E and it indeed works as expected (only the filtering behaviour seems to be a bit different from the nexus 9...). I did not try the Moto G yet. As it also is from Motorola I expect is will work, but cannot guarantee... – MStone Apr 14 '15 at 14:23
  • @MStone I tried the Moto G2 yesterday which pre-installed with 5.0.2, both receiving and sending adv package were not working, the receiving callback only fired one time for a new discovered Ibeacon sender. the sending is totally not supporting. – Shawn Apr 15 '15 at 00:46
  • @Shawn, surprising... and disappointing to see different behaviour for new devices of the same manufacturer... – MStone Apr 16 '15 at 06:38
  • @MStone I've ordered another US edition MOTO G2 from a online smuggled goods vendor, this is my last hope. – Shawn Apr 16 '15 at 08:39
  • From my tests, LG G4 and Galaxy S6 supports BLE advertising. – LILkillaBEE Jun 28 '15 at 21:05
  • Great! Thanks for sharing! – MStone Jun 30 '15 at 06:50
  • [This table](https://altbeacon.github.io/android-beacon-library/beacon-transmitter-devices.html) from Radius Networks lists the BLE peripheral mode support of several devices. In addition I can tell the Moto G 2nd gen. European 4G version (XT1072) seems supports the BLE peripheral mode. – Markus Kauppinen Sep 09 '15 at 14:17
  • I have tested on a Samsung Galaxy S5, model SM-G900M running Android 5.0 and can confirm peripheral mode is working on it – Martins.A Sep 22 '15 at 19:35
  • How about Moto G5 Plus? Anyone tried it? – Vlad Apr 26 '17 at 17:06
  • I don't know what the link shared above (https://altbeacon.github.io/android-beacon-library/beacon-transmitter-devices.html) is supposed to mean, but I am pretty sure Nexus 5 doesn't support this feature and it's on that table. Is there any trick to finding out this information for any given device model? – Vlad Oct 29 '17 at 05:50

1 Answers1

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The Android 5.0.X will only allow you to use the new API for BLE. This new API comes with a new feature, which you mentioned in your question: The possibility of advertising, from your own Android device, using it in Peripheral mode. However, the disadvantaged of this new feature is that it is hardware dependent. For example, before you start any BLE you need to:

First: Check to see if the BLE is supported, which you can do by adding this line in your manifest: <uses-feature android:name="android.hardware.bluetooth_le" android:required:"true"/>

Second: You need to check if your chipset has support for it, using the following methods:

bluetoothAdapter.isMultipleAdvertisementSupported();
bluetoothAdapter.isOffloadedFilteringSupported();
bluetoothAdapter.isOffloadedScanBatchingSupported();

Also notice that for both of the above methods, the API documentation clearly states that:

"Return true if the multi advertisement is supported by the chipset"

"true if chipset supports on-chip filtering"

"true if chipset supports on-chip scan batching"

That being said, it brings us to the question:

"Which hardware devices are going to support this feature ?"

Well, the answer to that is a little bit more complicated since this is not a mandatory feature for the bluetooth hardware/protocol and it will probably vary from manufacture to manufacture. But for now, the only currently devices that officially are supporting the technology, without major issues, are the Nexus 6 and Nexus 9, since their hardware already comes with the support. The best that you can do it, is not rely solely on the technology for now and try to explore other possible solutions, if any.

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