How to use bluetooth classic instead of le

Question

In reference to Dennis Mathews answer how do you specify bluetooth classic instead of LE on iOS? Is there a different api from Core Bluetooth Framework?

Answer 1

If your external accessory doesn't need high bandwidth in the connection to iOS, and you wish to use (or must use) 2.x/classic BT, (instead of 4.x/LE/Smart, which is very low bandwidth but requires no MFi dancing) you may be able to communicate by emulating a BT HID keyboard in your accessory.

It's hardly optimal, especially since the HID reverse channel is pretty limited (I think to things like lighting the caps lock key in the basic keyboard configuration (HID page 7 mapping, if I recall correctly.) OTOH, if your primary task is to push data to the iOS device, sending the data as keystrokes would not be too awful. (and might even be seen as virtue during testing :)

HID devices can declare additional capabilities in table defined keymaps, but I'm not sure if an iOS app can get at those alternate mappings with sanctioned APIs.