bluepy

Python interface to Bluetooth LE on Linux

This is a project to provide an API to allow access to Bluetooth Low Energy devices from Python. At present it runs on Linux only; I've mostly developed it using a Raspberry Pi, but it will also run on x86 Debian Linux.

The code is tested on Python 2.7 and 3.4; it should also work on 3.3.

There is also code which uses this to talk to a TI SensorTag (www.ti.com/sensortag).

Installation

The code needs an executable bluepy-helper to be compiled from C source. This is done automatically if you use the recommended pip installation method (see below). Otherwise, you can rebuild it using the Makefile in the bluepy directory.

To install the current released version, on most Debian-based systems:

$ sudo apt-get install python-pip libglib2.0-dev
$ sudo pip install bluepy

To install the source and build locally:

$ sudo apt-get install git build-essential libglib2.0-dev
$ git clone https://github.com/IanHarvey/bluepy.git
$ cd bluepy
$ python setup.py build
$ python setup.py install

I would recommend having command-line tools from BlueZ available for debugging. There are instructions for building BlueZ on the Raspberry Pi at http://www.elinux.org/RPi_Bluetooth_LE.

Documentation

Documentation can be built from the sources in the docs/ directory using Sphinx.

An online version of this is currently available at: http://ianharvey.github.io/bluepy-doc/

License

This project uses code from the bluez project, which is available under the Version 2 of the GNU Public License.

The Python files are released into the public domain by their author, Ian Harvey.

Release Notes

Release 1.0.5

• Fix issue #123: Scanner documentation updated
• Fix #125: setup.py error reporting on Python 3 if compilation fails
• Fix for issue #127: setup.py fails to rebuild bluepy-helper

Release 1.0.4

• Scanner now available as bluepy.blescan module and 'blescan' command
• Fix example scanner code in documentation
• Python 3 installation fixes
• Fix issues #69, #112, #115, #119

Release 1.0.3

• Now available on PyPI as bluepy. Installs via pip.

Release 0.9.12

• Support for CC2650 sensortag
• Documentation fixes
• Bug fix: DefaultDelegate has a handleDiscovery method
• Bug fix: keypress now works with both V1.4 and V1.5 firmware

Release 0.9.11

• Minor consistency improvements & bug fixes
• Scanner now has getDevices() call
• Docs updated

Release 0.9.10

• Now with Scan functionality

Release 0.9.9

• Now based on Bluez r5.29
• UUIDs held in separate JSON file, script added to update from Web
• Added setup.py and init.py for use with setuptools
• Allows indications as well as notifications
• Bug fixes (see pull requests #46, #48, #35)

Release 0.9.0

• Support for Notifications
• SensorTag code now supports keypress service
• Bug fix for SetSecurityLevel
• Support for Random address type
• More characteristic and service UUIDs added

Release 0.2.0

• Sphinx-based documentation
• SensorTag optimisations
• Improved command line interface to sensortag.py
• Added .gitignore file (github issue #17)

Release 0.1.0

• this has received limited testing and bug fixes on Python 3.4.1
• fix for exceptions thrown if peripheral sends notifications

Release dated 2-Jul-2014

• expand AssignedNumbers class definitions
• add getCommonName() to UUID type, returns human-friendly string

Release dated 14-Apr-2014:

• make btle.py useful from the command line
• add AssignedNumbers class

Release dated 12-Mar-2014

• add exceptions, and clean up better on failure

Initial release 19-Oct-2013:

TO DO list

The following are still missing from the current release:

• Unit test
• Peripheral role support