Charge HR and Bit Finder Geo app

[mdvx]

Hi Fitbit

I am getting coments from users of my app saying that they are unable to use it to find some Charge HR,  Is there someone I can talk too about Fitbit's use of the Bluetooth protocol, so I may fix this problems.

Thanks 

[AngelaMa]

Hello @mdvx, It's great to see that you've visited the Fitbit Community!  So I can properly direct your inquiry please let me know if you are referring to the Fitbit app? If you are referring to another application, please provide me the name of the application.  Also when you mention they are unable to find some Charge HR, is it for syncing or to locate lost trackers? 

Looking forward to your new comments 

[mdvx]

Hi Angela

The app I developed is Bit-Finder Geo https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.mdvx.android.fitbitscanner and it searches for lost trackers, however I have had a number of reports of problems detecting the Fitbit Charger HR, so I wanted to check my assumptions with your developers.  The app listens for Bluetooth advertising, and I am interested to see if there is any extra information I can extract from these broadcasts.

Thanks

[JeremiahFitbit · Accepted solution]

@mdvx: When a Fitbit device that can receive mobile notifications (such as Charge HR) is paired to a phone, it stops advertising itself. In that situation, people need to unpair the Bluetooth connection from their phone to cause the Fitbit device to start advertising itself.

[mdvx]

Thank you for the insight

[sajal]

Hi,

Is it possible for the app to automatically unpair the Charge HR once it is no longer in foreground?

I am trying to use my Charge HR as a presence device, however its not practical because it stops advertising itself once synced - http://www.sajalkayan.com/post/presence-bluetooth.html (See the Update section bottom of the post)

I have disabled All-Day sync, Call Notifications and Always Connected.

My suggestion is the app should take these settings into account and decide accordingly if it needs to hold onto the bluetooth pairing or not.

[mdvx]

The following (untested) code will throw up the Bluetooth Settings Activity, to prompt the user to unpair your Charge, if it is detected as paired (bonded)


public static boolean unpairFitbit(Context c) {
   BluetoothAdapter adapter = BluetoothAdapter.getDefaultAdapter();
   Set<BluetoothDevice> pairedDevices = adapter.getBondedDevices();

   for(BluetoothDevice bt : pairedDevices) {
      if (bt.getName().equals("Charge HR")) {
         Intent intentOpenBluetoothSettings = new Intent();
         intentOpenBluetoothSettings.setAction(android.provider.Settings.ACTION_BLUETOOTH_SETTINGS);
         c.startActivity(intentOpenBluetoothSettings);
         return true;
      }
   }
   return false;
}

[sajal]

Thanks. But after turning off the All-Day sync, Call Notifications and Always Connected options, the charge HR no longer shows up as a paired device in the settings. I suspect the app holds onto the tracker using some other BLE tricks.

Also, I don't want to manually un-bond the tracker because I wont always remember to do that. If I wanted to do it manually, I can simply turn off bluetooth and then on again. That un-bonds the tracker and advertisements resume...

[mdvx]

Yes, I have noticed it does not release immediatly, have you tried: 

  https://stackoverflow.com/questions/23076641/ble-device-bonding-remove-automatically-in-android