Electric imp + ble112 implementation questions

General
1

Hi,

I am looking to prototype an electric imp enabled BLE hub for interacting with a bunch of BLE enabled devices at home and had questions on the following electric imp community project:
https://community.electricimp.com/blog/imp-ble112-internet-connected-bluetooth-gateway/

  1. Will it have ability to connect with select peripherals in addition to acting as a scanner.
  2. Can its mode be toggled to act as an ibeacon or can it simultaneously advertise as iBeacon and also scan.
  3. Is there a limit of # of peripherals that the BLE112 module can scan

Thanks in advance

2

Hi @everestman,

  1. Yes. The sample code shows connections as well.
  2. It can’t be both at the same time but you should be able to toggle them back and forth. It is not something we tested but there is no reason it shouldn’t work.
  3. Scanning, no. Connecting, yes. I believe it can maintain 8 connections although we never tested more than one.

The communication protocol between the Imp and the BLE112 is called BGAPI. There is plenty of information out in the wild about BGAPI and lots of active community members. Don’t feel limited to the Imp community for getting assistance.

3

Thanks @aron. As a BLE /hardware newbie, this is helpful…One last question. I have an imp+April board from 18 months ago. Would that suffice or is there any ‘hardware’ updates that makes it better to work with a newer imp model…

4

There are newer imps (imp002/003); imp002 has the same processor & memory, but 12 IOs vs 6 on imp001.

imp003 has 23 IOs, more RAM and a faster processor.

…but, if your code is working on imp001 then no reason to change. The next release will also allow you to get a whole load more code squeezed onto the imp :slight_smile: