BTstack LE Arduino Shield

Hello everyone

it is quite a bit time ago when the BTstack LE Arduino Shield was developed and finally available at Seeedstudio’s Bazaar for sale using the following link: http://www.seeedstudio.com/depot/BTstack-LE-Arduino-Shield-p-2464.html

In this blogpost I will quickly demonstrate how the BTstack LE Shield can be used with an Arduino/Genuino Zero to act as an iBeacon Scanner. As usual working with additional Arduino Libraries is very easy. Just follow the description provided by BlueKitchen at the following link: http://bluekitchen-gmbh.com/btstack-arduino/tutorial/. This tutorial already shows the use of the BTstack LE Shield on an Arduino Mega 2560 running the iBeacon Scanner sketch.

I will somehow duplicate and shorten the tutorial a bit on the Zero using the most recent Arduino IDE 1.6.6. The following illustration shows the BTstack LE Arduino Shield stacked on an Arduino Zero:

Just follow the description of the BTstack Arduino Tutorial an install the btstack for arduino into your Arduino Library folder. Once the btstack is available inside the Arduino IDE select: File -> Examples -> btstack -> iBeaconScanner. You should see a sketch similar to the one shown in the following screenshot:

Select the Zero Programming port and upload the sketch to your Arduino and finally watch iBeacon advertisements as well as BLE device advertisements coming in as illustrated in the following screenshot:

The iBeaconScanner is only one of the example sketches which are included in the btstack library for Arduino. The following examples are available:

• iBeacon: iBeacon Simulator.
• iBeaconScanner: iBeacon Scanner.
• ANCS: ANCS Client.
• LECentral: LE Central.
• LEPeripheral: LE Peripheral.

If you have any questions regarding btstack on Arduino feel free to ask Matthias Ringwald on the BTstack Google Group. The eagle design files are available from the following github repository: https://github.com/michaelkroll/Hardware/tree/master/BTstackLEArduinoShield

Thanks for reading and have fun playing around with the BTstack LE Arduino Shield,

Michael