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The idea is to scan beacons from the watch and then send the data to the phone. The phone app will then estimate the location of the watch.

I guess android wear provides this functionality, but the cheapest model is Sony SmartWatch 3, which costs $130. Does current Pebble API support BLE scans from watch?

R15
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typedef
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  • Actually, I don't know, but try to look at device tech specs. To support beacons scanning, a device has to support Bluetooth 4.0 (BLE) and needs to have at least Android 5.0 (Lollipop) or higher. If a device has such specs, it should support beacons scanning. – Piotr Wittchen May 05 '16 at 11:51
  • @piotr.wittchen Thanks for your reply! Could you please explain why it needs to have Android 5.0? This post here suggests 4.3 is enough: http://developer.android.com/guide/topics/connectivity/bluetooth-le.html Am I missing something? – typedef May 05 '16 at 11:57
  • I was wrong. I just checked a documentation and I see you can use Android 4.3 (API Level 18). – Piotr Wittchen May 05 '16 at 12:29

2 Answers2

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Unfortunately, I believe the answer is no, at least for Apple and Google-powered devices. In the case of Apple's WatchKit, CoreBluetooth is not available, nor are the beacon functions of CoreLocation. The same is true for Android Wear. In both cases, the general approach is to have the nearby mobile phone do the actual beacon scanning.

Pebble's native SDK documentation also do not mention Bluetooth LE APIs, but the Smartstrap documentation suggests it is similarly possible to leverage Bluetooth beacon scanning on a nearby iOS or Android device and show some results on the Pebble.

davidgyoung
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  • Since there's Android Wear 2, is the answer still the same? I am curious to know the answer to that. I know that scanning beacon is resource intensive but still, it would be a nice thing. – Nordes Jul 09 '17 at 23:41
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    A quick scan of the Wear 2 SDK classes shows no classes that reference Bluetooth. – davidgyoung Jul 10 '17 at 00:05
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I have just successfuly tested BLE beacons scanning on an LG G Watch B7A6. I put on it a simple app written in Android Studio that uses https://github.com/AltBeacon/android-beacon-library .

I can also establish BLE connection with the device (custom one, not a smartphone) and exchange data.

It started to work after I updated it to Android Wear 1.4.0.2576000. Android system version I have is 6.0.1.

So it seems scanning for beacons on this particular device works.

Bentleylust
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