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    Bluetooth Programming With Python 3: The Two Options

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    Hemant Homkar
    This document discusses communicating over Bluetooth with Python, comparing the use of native Python sockets versus the PyBluez library. It presents examples of sending messages between a client and server device using each method. While Python sockets can be used for basic Bluetooth communication, PyBluez provides more functionality and is the recommended approach.

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    Bluetooth Programming With Python 3: The Two Options

    Uploaded by

    Hemant Homkar
    653 views5 pages
    This document discusses communicating over Bluetooth with Python, comparing the use of native Python sockets versus the PyBluez library. It presents examples of sending messages between a client and server device using each method. While Python sockets can be used for basic Bluetooth communication, PyBluez provides more functionality and is the recommended approach.

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    Bluetooth-python-3-

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    This document discusses communicating over Bluetooth with Python, comparing the use of native Python sockets versus the PyBluez library. It presents examples of sending messages between a client and server device using each method. While Python sockets can be used for basic Bluetooth communication, PyBluez provides more functionality and is the recommended approach.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as pdf or txt
    653 views5 pages

    Bluetooth Programming With Python 3: The Two Options

    Uploaded by

    Hemant Homkar
    This document discusses communicating over Bluetooth with Python, comparing the use of native Python sockets versus the PyBluez library. It presents examples of sending messages between a client and server device using each method. While Python sockets can be used for basic Bluetooth communication, PyBluez provides more functionality and is the recommended approach.

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    Bluetooth Programming with Python 3

    written Apr 21st, 2013

    This post presents basic techniques for communicating over Bluetooth with Python 3.3
    and above (using Python sockets). Some simple examples of communicating over
    Bluetooth with sockets will be shown. PyBluez examples will also be presented for
    comparison.

    The two options


    Currently, the most widely documented way to communicate with Python over
    Bluetooth is to use PyBluez. Previously, PyBluez only supported Python 2. In January
    2014, they released a Python 3 version.

    Python 3.3’s native Python sockets support Bluetooth communication. Unfortunately,


    there is very little documentation available describing how to use Python sockets to
    communicate over Bluetooth. While using Bluetooth with these sockets might be easy
    for someone who already knows how to use Python sockets, the lack of documentation
    leaves many people unaware that this method of using Bluetooth even exists. Since
    PyBluez was ported to Python 3, the use of native Python sockets has limited use.

    Required skill: finding the MAC address of a bluetooth


    adapter
    To run the examples, the MAC address of the Bluetooth adapter used by the server must
    be known. The client application uses this address to connect to the server. On Linux,
    you can get a list of all available Bluetooth devices and their MAC addresses using the
    command hciconfig, like so:
    Client sever messaging
    This application connects two devices over Bluetooth and allows one to send messages
    to the other. The sending device runs socketClient.py, and the receiving device runs
    socketServer.py. These scripts are shown below, first using Python sockets, then
    using PyBluez:

    Python sockets
    Client (socketClient.py)

    1 """
    2 A simple Python script to send messages to a sever over Bluetooth using
    3 Python sockets (with Python 3.3 or above).
    4 """
    5
    6 import socket
    7
    8 serverMACAddress = '00:1f:e1:dd:08:3d'
    9 port = 3
    10 s = socket.socket(socket.AF_BLUETOOTH, socket.SOCK_STREAM, socket.BTPROTO_RFCOMM)
    11 s.connect((serverMACAddress,port))
    12 while 1:
    13 text = input()
    14 if text == "quit":
    15 break
    16 s.send(bytes(text, 'UTF-8'))
    17 s.close()

    Server (socketServer.py)

    1 """
    2 A simple Python script to receive messages from a client over
    3 Bluetooth using Python sockets (with Python 3.3 or above).
    4 """
    5
    6 import socket
    7
    8 hostMACAddress = '00:1f:e1:dd:08:3d' # The MAC address of a Bluetooth adapter on the s
    9 port = 3 # 3 is an arbitrary choice. However, it must match the port used by the clien
    10 backlog = 1
    11 size = 1024
    12 s = socket.socket(socket.AF_BLUETOOTH, socket.SOCK_STREAM, socket.BTPROTO_RFCOMM)
    13 s.bind((hostMACAddress,port))
    14 s.listen(backlog)
    15 try:
    16 client, address = s.accept()
    17 while 1:
    18 data = client.recv(size)
    19 if data:
    20 print(data)
    21 client.send(data)
    22 except:
    23 print("Closing socket")
    24 client.close()
    25 s.close()

    As an aside, this code is almost identical to code required to create a client-server


    application over the internet. All that needs to be changed is the two lines:

    1 # For the Server


    2 s = socket.socket(socket.AF_INET, socket.SOCK_STREAM)
    3 s.bind(("192.168.1.17",50001)) # The Bluetooth MAC Address and RFCOMM port is replaced
    4
    5 # For the Client
    6 s = socket.socket(socket.AF_INET, socket.SOCK_STREAM)
    7 s.connect(("192.168.1.17",50001))
    8
    9 # Note: these are arbitrary IP addresses and TCP ports.

    PyBluez
    To compare, below is the functionally identical application written using the PyBluez
    library.

    Client (PyBluezClient.py)

    1 """
    2 A simple Python script to send messages to a sever over Bluetooth
    3 using PyBluez (with Python 2).
    4 """
    5
    6 import bluetooth
    7
    8 serverMACAddress = '00:1f:e1:dd:08:3d'
    9 port = 3
    10 s = bluetooth.BluetoothSocket(bluetooth.RFCOMM)
    11 s.connect((serverMACAddress, port))
    12 while 1:
    13 text = raw_input() # Note change to the old (Python 2) raw_input
    14 if text == "quit":
    15 break
    16 s.send(text)
    17 sock.close()

    Server (PyBluezServer.py)
    1 """
    2 A simple Python script to receive messages from a client over
    3 Bluetooth using PyBluez (with Python 2).
    4 """
    5
    6 import bluetooth
    7
    8 hostMACAddress = '00:1f:e1:dd:08:3d' # The MAC address of a Bluetooth adapter on the s
    9 port = 3
    10 backlog = 1
    11 size = 1024
    12 s = bluetooth.BluetoothSocket(bluetooth.RFCOMM)
    13 s.bind((hostMACAddress, port))
    14 s.listen(backlog)
    15 try:
    16 client, clientInfo = s.accept()
    17 while 1:
    18 data = client.recv(size)
    19 if data:
    20 print(data)
    21 client.send(data) # Echo back to client
    22 except:
    23 print("Closing socket")
    24 client.close()
    25 s.close()

    Conclusion
    PyBluez is the most effective way of communicating over Bluetooth using Python.
    Python sockets can now be used for Bluetooth communication (since Python 3.3). For a
    simple application, the code is almost identical. For some tasks, however, such as
    device discovery and Bluetooth service advertisements, it does not seem possible to
    carry them out using Python sockets. Consequently, PyBluez surpassed Python sockets
    in most regards. This Stackoverflow question discusses some of the limitations of
    Python sockets for Bluetooth.

    Further reading
    There is little to no information on Bluetooth programming with Python sockets. There is
    plenty of information on PyBluez. The following are some useful resources:

    Bluetooth Essentials for Programmers:


    Covers many programming languages and uses PyBluez with Python. Great for
    getting started fast and gaining understanding along the way.

    PyBluez examples:
    Example code covering various Bluetooth tasks.

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    Comments
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    Name

    Leopold • 5 years ago


    Thanks for the post. It helped me decide with way to choose as my server needs to advertise its service I
    will need to use Pybluez. I cant manage to install the Pybluez module I need for my program to work. (I
    assume its another one than Pybluez for python 2, as when I download that one seems to be only
    downloading for python 2 and not 3). I have searched online but I find nothing with Pybluez for Python 3 ...
    Thanks a lot in advance
    2 R l Sh
    H om e

    Power ed by Octopr ess. D esign for k ed fr om Adr ia n Ar tiles.

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