The new Raspberry Pi 5 has proven itself to be a force to be reckoned with in the world of embedded single-board computers. The Raspberry Pi 5’s Linux OS is the real deal and contains an instance of the BlueZ BLE stack just like it’s desktop cousins. The existence of an official Linux BLE stack on the Raspberry Pi 5 allows us to configure the Raspberry Pi 5 as a BLE peripheral device or a BLE central device. When a Raspberry Pi 5 is programmed to be a BLE central device, the Raspberry Pi 5 can send commands to and exchange data with a BLE peripheral device.
A BLE-enabled Raspberry Pi 5 can do more than just shuffle data from one point to another. As an indoor device, a BLE-equipped Raspberry Pi 5 acting as a positioning device is more accurate than an indoor GPS device. In addition, a Raspberry Pi 5 running BLE can act as a beacon and communicate with multiple BLE devices within its range. BLE provides the ability for a Raspberry Pi 5 and like devices to be used in smart home and health/fitness applications among others.
Using guidance contained within the Bluetooth for Linux Developer’s Study Guide, I have assembled a customized Python BLE central device script that you can use as a basis to create your own version of a Raspberry Pi 5 BLE central device. My Raspberry Pi 5 BLE central script was written within an Eclipse IDE embellished with PyDev and is loaded with debug print statements that allow you to monitor BLE command and data exchanges in real time via the Eclipse Console.
During the BLE Central script coding process, I found D-Spy, a tool to explore D-Bus connections, to be an extremely useful debugging and verification tool. I have also written a BLE peripheral device application targeting the Nordic Semiconductor nRF52840. I have packaged my custom Raspberry Pi 5 BLE Central Python script and the nRF52840 application into a single zip file that can be downloaded using this link. You will need to get a copy of the BLE and nRF code to reference as we continue our BLE discussion.
