Release Beta

So there's four major things that have happened with BlueMesh recently:

• Messages are now sent with headers describing their size, so the message size limit is as big as a 4 byte unsigned integer can get.
• We've switched to supporting only Android 4.x since the Bluetooth stack is significantly more reliable
• After some testing, we were satisfied that this release is stable enough to be released as a beta.
• We got an honorable mention at the RPI Undergraduate Research Symposium.

That's pretty much it. From here on out we will be focused on getting proper routing to work (as much as we can between classes).

This Week at BlueMesh

Hey guys,

So we are in our FINAL FINAL stages before releasing an official Beta! (seriously this time)  BlueMesh has preformed better than ever before!  We will have a release date announced next week around this time.  We are closing down on the rest of the blocking bugs and finishing up tweaking the code.

We are do however have one BIG change that we need to announce.  We are dropping official support for 2.X devices.  This DOESN'T mean that you won't be able to use BlueMesh with a 2.X device as we are still targeting API level 7, it just means that it may not work exactly as you expect it to.  We at BlueMesh recommend that you target your BlueMesh apps to Android 4.X devices in order to avoid weird behavior from some 2.X devices.

Here is what has happened over the past week.

Bugs fixed:

• ClientThread appears to die upon first connection
• Once device disconnects it will not reconnect
• Sockets do not get closed immediately when BlueMesh is stopped

Bugs found:

• FatalException on closing BlueMesh in Android Runtime

The goals for next week will be the following.

Jerry:

• Fix FatalException in Android Runtime
• Address TODOs in code comments
• Final testing for first beta release

Zach:

• Update WIKI to reflect new API
• Final testing for first beta release
• Propose implementation for new routing protocol for Beta 2

This Week at BlueMesh

This week Zach and I worked on fixing bugs related to connectivity issues and threading issues.

Bugs fixed:

• Runaway threads on exit
• Crash on deconstruction BlueMeshService object

Bugs found:

• ClientThread appears to die upon first connection
• Once device disconnects it will not reconnect

The goals for next week will be the following.

Jerry:

• Fix newly found connectivity bugs
• Final testing for first beta release

Zach:

• Propose implementation for new routing protocol
• Final testing for first beta release

Almost ready for another release.

Hey guys,

Thanks to Doug helping us create a test app, we were able to verify that BlueMesh is working as expected after the code refactor.  We are going to do another week or two of testing before we go ahead and release our next alpha version just to ensure that everything is working as we want it to.

There are still a few small features we are going to implement (mostly optional arguments when building bms) that will be in the new release that we will be doing this week.

Support for Windows, Linux, and OS X will most likely not make it into this alpha, but we will have another alpha release soon after this one with all those features included.

Stay posted for exciting mesh networking news on BlueMesh!

Jerry

BlueMesh Test App

Hello,

As Jerry mentioned last week, I've been working on an application to test the basic functionality of BlueMesh. I'm still learning the Android API and the BlueMesh code base, so my confidence in my work is not astoundingly high. However, I have a first draft of something which is at least a good step towards working. I'll be spending the next couple of days making sure that it does what it needs to.

As of right now, I have the test results simply displayed as a Toast message. Ideally, I would like to set up a full graphical interface of some sort, with a list of the tests performed and checkboxes (or something) indicating whether each was successful. I'll also be looking to expand the set of tests as I get more familiar with what the service is capable of, and as the features themselves are expanded.

-Doug

New Developers

Hey Guys,

As you may know, BlueMesh has been in development for just over a year!  It began with a lonely group of one (me) and remained as such for about 4 months.  For the past 9 months Sean joined the team and we were two.  As of a few weeks ago BlueMesh has attained 2 new developers: Doug and Zach!

Over the next few weeks...

Doug will be working on writing a test application for BlueMesh that we will use to ensure that our master and dev branches are in a working state.

Zach will be working on updating our wiki to reflect our new API (sorry) and all of the new features that we are implementing.

Sean and I will be working on BlueMesh core functionality.  First we will be adding support for Windows and maybe Linux and OS X.

Contact us with any questions you may have,
Jerry

Builder Pattern

Hey guys,

I recently change BlueMesh so that when constructing BlueMeshService objects, rather than using a constructor method you now use a builder.  This makes it a lot easier to add new features to BlueMesh such as support for WIFI or other operating systems.  In addition, it is now a lot easier to configure BlueMesh to exactly how you want it.  Here is a short example of how it works:

BlueMeshService bms;
BlueMeshServiceBuilder bmsb = new BlueMeshServiceBuilder();
bms = bmsb.uuid(UUID.fromString("fa87c0d0-afac-11de-8a39-0800200c9a66"))
          .bluetooth(true)
          .build();
We will be updating the documentation to reflect these new changes soon and also have some new tutorials about how to use BlueMesh.

-Jerry