Tutorial

Arduino IDE

Please install the latest version of the Arduino IDE from http://arduino.cc. This tutorial was created & tested with version 1.6.4, but it should work with all newer versions.

BTstack Library

To install the BTstack library, please download it from http://bluekitchen-gmbh.com/files/btstack-arduino-latest.zip and unpack it into your Arduino libraries folder. On OS X, that's:

~/Documents/Arduino/libraries

After installing the BTstack Library, you have to restart the Arduino IDE to make it show up in the examples section.

Hardware

Please plug the BTstack LE Shield into one of the supported Arduino boards listed on the Welcome page. With an Arduino Mega 2560, it looks like this:

Image of BTstack LE Shield plugged into Arduion Mega 2560

Test

As a first test, open the iBeaconScanner example via File->Examples->BTstack->iBeaconScanner. In the Sketch window, press the Upload button.

Image of Arduino IDE Sketch

After it was successfully uploaded to the board, open the Serial Console.

The output should look similar to this:

BTstackManager::setup()
Local Address: 0C:F3:EE:00:00:00
--> READY <--
Start scanning
Device discovered: 00:21:3C:AC:F7:38, RSSI -55
Device discovered: 00:21:3C:AC:F7:38, RSSI -55
Device discovered: D0:39:72:CD:83:45, RSSI -55
Device discovered: D0:39:72:CD:83:45, RSSI -55
Device discovered: D0:39:72:CD:83:45, RSSI -55
Device discovered: D0:39:72:CD:83:45, RSSI -55

This example listens for BLE Advertisements and prints the Bluetooth BD_ADDR (similar to a WiFi MAC) address and the received signal strength. For iBeacons, also the Major ID, the Minor ID and the iBeacon UUID are shown.

Please have a look at the other examples, too.