Decreased BLE startScan detected devices on Android 5.0 Lollipop

Question

Short version:

In my tests with Android 5.0 Lollipop I have noticed android.bluetooth.le.BluetoothLeScanner detects BLE devices less frequently than Android 4.4 KitK

Answer 1

I have gotten very different results with a Nexus 5 running the new Android 5.0 scanning APIs. Detections of BLE packets came in at near real time when using SCAN_MODE_LOW_LATENCY, at every 100ms for BLE beacons transmitting at 10Hz.

You can read the full results here:

http://developer.radiusnetworks.com/2014/10/28/android-5.0-scanning.html

These tests are based off of running the open source Android Beacon Library 2.0's experimental android-l-apis branch here.

It is not obvious what the difference is in your test results, but it is possible that starting and stopping scanning is changing the results.

EDIT: it is possible the hardware is the difference. See a report of similar timings on the Nexus 4: https://github.com/AltBeacon/android-beacon-library/issues/59#issuecomment-64281446