Cannot get balena-web-ble bluetooth working on BalenaFIn

I’m working to get a simple gatt server running on the BalenaFin and after looking at several libraries that have been challenging I stumbled on balena-web-ble which looks like a great baseline for our application.

However, I cannot get this to run on the Balena Fin. I followed a similar post of someone having trouble but with a generic-86xPC device but surprised to be running into as many issues here on the Fin.

I have read in other places as well as the referenced post that bluetooth service may need to be stoped before running npm start? I’ve tried this as well with no results. I get a clear npm build and start with logging from the server but I find nothing on bluetooth scanners suggesting the app is advertising.

Could someone confirm this? Any thoughts on getting Bleno to play well with the Fin?

Have made slightly better progress on getting Bleno.js working on the fin using the following:

  1. Switching to @abandonware/bleno package seems to provide less errors at runtime

  2. Adding a start.sh file as my entry point with the following:

//start.sh
service bluetooth stop
hciconfig hci0 up
npm start

However, I’ve attempted to apply both these updates to balena-web-ble with no success and subsequently just a lot of runtime errors on node. I am still debugging a basic gatt implementation with Bleno with mixed results.

Anyone on the Balena team had other suggestions for a preferred way of getting a gatt server running on Balena FIn? The balena-web-ble example seems perfect if it can work.

@alexanderkjones Thanks for reporting this in and for your experimentation. I’ll try replicating this on my side with a Fin. Let’s also loop in @rahul-thakoor , the project builder, to see if he has any insight on why you’re having trouble with bleno and the Fin.

Hey @alexanderkjones,

no success and subsequently just a lot of runtime errors on node.

can you please share some logs and possibly share the code you are running?

Thanks