Windows 8, Bluetooth LE and BluetoothFindFirstDevice/BluetoothFindNextDevice/BluetoothFindDeviceClose

Question

In Windows 8 CP,  it seems to be not possible to find any Bluetooth Low Energy device with BluetoothFindFirstDevice/BluetoothFindNextDevice/BluetoothFindDeviceClose functions (desktop app, not Metro).

Is that by design?

WBW,

       Pavel.

Answer 1

Hi Pavel,

This is by design, Bluetooth LE devices are not represented in the legacy Bluetooth apis.

Instead, you can use the Windows.Devices.Enumeration api (in a Metro environment) or SetupDI apis (in a desktop app) to enumerate devices of the GUID_BLUETOOTHLE_DEVICE_INTERFACE device interface class to enumerate the paired devices.

Thanks,
Alain

Answer 2

Well, and what about (unpaired) devices discovery? MS isn't going to publish bthsrv (ALPC?) API, right? :-) 

Answer 3

Hello,

I'm trying to develop a Bluetooth application that can discover and pair Bluetooth LE Devices.

I was wondering if GUID_BLUETOOTHLE_DEVICE_INTERFACE is capable of doing this. Are there specific IOCTL for discovering devices?

I also tried to google GUID_BLUETOOTHLE_DEVICE_INTERFACE but I was not able to find any resources pointing to this GUID.

Can you please explain more?

Answer 4

Hi Jane,

Discovery and pairing is done through the inbox experience and Windows does not offer any Apis to accomplish this.  We recommend using the inbox experience for discovery and pairing.

Thanks,
Alain Michaud [MSFT]

Answer 5

I've tried the inbox experience but it was not able to pair with my BLE device.

Since there are no APIs for discovering and pairing BLE devices, are there other ways for me to pair with my BLE devices?