Apps that receive input from other devices?

[formigone]

I'm a professional software engineer and hobbyist runner. I've written an application for personal use that reads data from my Versa 4 (using the REST APIs, not in realtime). My app also takes data from a Powr Labs heart monitor strap, which I export from an app on my phone that receives the data from the heart rate monitor.

My question: is it possible for a Fitbit app to connect to an external bluetooth device? I see that the SDK makes it easy for my custom Fitbit app to read from the Fitbit device's own sensors, but I'd like to read from both (device sensors + external device's sensors, via bluetooth).

[Gondwana]

Alas no; Fitbit doesn't expose an API for Bluetooth. But you can communicate on-device sensor data to a Fitbit companion app (which runs within the Fitbit mobile app on your phone), and that could forward the data to a native app on your phone (or elsewhere), which could send it via Bluetooth if that's still needed.

[formigone]

Good point - using a Fitbit companion app as a proxy, so the one app receives data from that, as well as from my other device(s). Thanks

[Gondwana]

Yes, that would work.

Unfortunately, Versa 4 poses extra problems in that the Device SDK never left beta, and we can only develop clockfaces (ie, not other apps) for it. But you can put the sensor and comms stuff in a clockface.