Check out the very first beta release of the Adafruit Bluefruit LE desktop application. This is an application that lets you interact with Bluefruit LE and other Bluetooth low energy devices right from your Mac OSX, Windows, and Linux desktop. Just like the iOS and Android app you can do things like:
View BLE device information like services, characteristics, and read characteristic values. Great for checking the firmware version of a device using its device information service.
Send and receive data with a BLE UART, like controlling an Arduino project over BLE.
Send control pad and color picker values to a BLE device over its UART connection.
Visualize a BNO-055 absolute orientation sensor using a 3D model.
This application is built using the excellent Electron and noble open source libraries which allow a JavaScript application to easily run on any platform and access Bluetooth low energy hardware (even on Windows 7!). Be aware it’s still early in development and we expect there be bugs and other issues. Also if you’re using Windows you’ll need to have a CSR8510 USB BLE dongle–unfortunately other BLE adapters aren’t yet supported on Windows.
Check out the releases tab of the application’s home on GitHub to get the latest binary release. Be sure to check out the README.md file too to see instructions for using it on your platform. If you run into issues be sure to raise them on GitHub.
Adafruit publishes a wide range of writing and video content, including interviews and reporting on the maker market and the wider technology world. Our standards page is intended as a guide to best practices that Adafruit uses, as well as an outline of the ethical standards Adafruit aspires to. While Adafruit is not an independent journalistic institution, Adafruit strives to be a fair, informative, and positive voice within the community – check it out here: adafruit.com/editorialstandards
Stop breadboarding and soldering – start making immediately! Adafruit’s Circuit Playground is jam-packed with LEDs, sensors, buttons, alligator clip pads and more. Build projects with Circuit Playground in a few minutes with the drag-and-drop MakeCode programming site, learn computer science using the CS Discoveries class on code.org, jump into CircuitPython to learn Python and hardware together, TinyGO, or even use the Arduino IDE. Circuit Playground Express is the newest and best Circuit Playground board, with support for CircuitPython, MakeCode, and Arduino. It has a powerful processor, 10 NeoPixels, mini speaker, InfraRed receive and transmit, two buttons, a switch, 14 alligator clip pads, and lots of sensors: capacitive touch, IR proximity, temperature, light, motion and sound. A whole wide world of electronics and coding is waiting for you, and it fits in the palm of your hand.
Have an amazing project to share? The Electronics Show and Tell is every Wednesday at 7pm ET! To join, head over to YouTube and check out the show’s live chat – we’ll post the link there.
Python for Microcontrollers — Python on Microcontrollers Newsletter: Pi Day, GitHub 2FA and much more! #CircuitPython #Python #micropython @ThePSF @Raspberry_Pi
