Phonegap Healthcare Adapter Backlog
NexJ Medical Peripheral Mobile Adapter Will be designed to enable NexJ's Mobile Healthcare solutions to interact with Bluetooth peripherals.
- Main article: Mobile Medical Device Integration
Investigation
IOS
- Bluetooth can work on simulators.
- Deploy to devices, requiring enrollment in the developer program.
- Understand Objective C.
- Understand iOS best practice development.
- Understand iOS PhoneGap plugin best practices.
Android
- Bluetooth does not work on the emulator.
- Understand ADK best practice development.
- Understand ADK PhoneGap plugin best practices.
PhoneGap API
- Design a unified API in JavaScript that will allow the NexJ application to interact with Bluetooth devices.
- Define a project architecture that facilitates multiple device compatibility.
Blood Pressure Device
IOS
- Create native Bluetooth adapter for this device.
Android
- Create native Bluetooth adapter for this device.
Glucose Level Device
IOS
- Extend native Bluetooth adapter for this device.
Android
- Extend native Bluetooth adapter for this device.
Weight Scale Device
IOS
- Extend native Bluetooth adapter for this device.
Android
- Extend native Bluetooth adapter for this device.
Proof of Concept
Android
- We've created the Android native code (using Android Bluetooth API) to test the Bluetooth process between Android and medical devices.
- Settings for connection: For creating the UUID of the Android device, "00001101-0000-1000-8000-00805f9b34fb" is used instead of conforming to the COD filter value on the A&D specs; but the service name and PIN on the specs have to be used.
- Issues in the test:
- For the blood pressure meter, pairing can be set but data transmission is unstable. The reason could be: The A&D medical device always forces one to use RFCOMM port/channel 1 for the connection; but the Android device will choose the next available channel.
Summary of Bluetooth communication test between Android and A&D BTP devices
- After the research efforts of many weeks, we have successfully built Bluetooth communication test programs: one is an Android native application; the other is based on PhoneGap (plugin on Android) framework.
- The two versions of the testing code, through Android Bluetooth APIs, make the Android devices work as Bluetooth server and perform SPP communication of Bluetooth.
- Android devices: The minimum version of Android is targeted at Android 2.2 and the test devices are HTC Desire (Android 2.3.3) and MOTOROLA XT885 (Android 4.04).
- Medical devices: A&D BTP series which are SPP and SDP conformable. We use A&D UC-321PBT(Weight scale) and UA-767PBT (Blood Pressure Monitor).
- Important research findings for building the Bluetooth applications:
- Use the right Bluetooth service name and application UUID (00001101-0000-1000-8000-00805f9b34fb).
- Set the Android device to 'discoverable' state for the first medical measurement even through for paired device it should not be necessary.
- The Android Bluetooth server works only after rebooting the Android device. This is the first issue we met on the tests. After search on the Internet, We condemned the medical devices uses the fixed RFCOMM port number - #1. This conclusion was "confirmed" by the documentation in the A&D Blackberry code from NexJ, which states that port #1 be used to build Bluetooth server socket. This conclusion could be right form A&D early products. But the current market products of the A&D BTP series (at least UC-321PBT and UA-767PBT) are DSP conformable and are able to use any RFCOMM port number provided by Bluetooth server. The real reason that "Android Bluetooth server works only after rebooting the Android device" is this: When the application (Android activity) exits by clicking the "back" or "home' button, it becomes inactive but its Bluetooth server thread keeps receiving signals from the medical devices. So the newly started applications cannot not receive data. Therefore, the issue of "A&D medical devices use fixed Bluetooth port#" is actually not the case.
- Unreadable data from medical devices may affect the Bluetooth communication. In the tests, we found inappropriate process of unreadable data from medical devices will interrupt the Bluetooth communication, leading to these unreadable measurement records accumulated within medical device's memory (up to 40 records). Each time a new measurement is made, unreadable records will be sent to the Bluetooth server first, and these records will cause communication failure. The solution for this issue is that the Bluetooth server accepts these wrong data instead of giving exceptions to interrupt the process. We may let applications to deal with these invalid data.