Inter App Communication between iOS App and Atmega 1284 microprocessor via bluetooth

Question

What I am trying to accomplish: User enters a password on the iOS app. If the password is correct, then send a one bit value to the microprocessor that indicates the user got the right password. The microprocessor can then start up the step motor to open the door latch.

Has anyone tried to achieve this before? If so, can you please point me in a general direction. I don't know how to approach this problem. I couldn't really find a tutorial for this. My questions are:

1. Is there a specific Bluetooth I need to purchase? such as only BLE devices

2. I see a lot of examples of Bluetooth communication between iOS and Ardunio. Would the execution of events be similar for my needs?

3. Is there another approach to my problem? rather than using Bluetooth?

Answer 1

I think reading the Core Bluetooth Programming Guide is a great start. However, this assumes the device you're connecting to is using Bluetooth 4.x which is widely known as Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE). If the device you're connecting to is using Bluetooth 2.x, you'll have to use the External Accessories Framework .

EA supports only devices that have been certified MFI (Made for iPhone) by Apple.

To make a long story short, if the device you're trying to connect to is Bluetooth 2.x and it's not MFI, you're basically SOL .

Otherwise, you can start connecting to that device pretty easily. Check out LightBlue as a way to test if you connect to the device. It will work with any BLE device.

Here's a simple tutorial to get you going with Core Bluetooth.