Interfacing with others!

Hello, All! As detailed in the last post, BlueMesh will be trying to make the move towards greater compatibility. Specifically, we're looking towards creating a Java interface that will encapsulate all of the proprietary portions of Bluetooth. So, if you are willing to write an interface class for your platform, then BlueMesh will work on it.

That's the vision. Practically, BlueMesh will have to come with a couple of common interfaces. Luckily, I found another open-source project, BlueCove, that will allow Microsoft, OS X, and a few other platforms to do just that. Specifically, I no longer have to write code for these machines specifically; I can use this program as a bridge. More importantly, I hope that BlueCove will give me some insight as to what exactly the BlueMesh interface should expect and contain, so that any interfaces can be written easily.

This task, as large as it is, is one of my greater priorities, for two reasons.
1) It will give BlueMesh greater compatibility and intercommunication
2) It will allow for testing with the library itself to be done one any one platform, and it can be a platform of choice. The Android SDK is nice enough, but doesn't allow for easy debugging. If this interface is successfully written, then BlueMesh can be tested, and eventually operated, between any two Bluetooth-enabled devices.

Testing Metrics and BlueMesh

We have been working on developing a number of metric test programs to try and find the technical limitations and performance ability of BlueMesh. Hopefully, we'll be able to get some useful and important data concerning performance and limitations for developers.

Right now, the tests we're trying to create and the questions we have are:
- Fastest Bounce : How quickly can BlueMesh send a small message from device A to device B and back? How much does this time change with N intermediate devices?

- Largest Message: What's the largest message that can reliably be sent through BlueMesh? Does this result in a significant slowdown? What's the greatest data throughput we can achieve with BlueMesh, and what affects it?

I'm considering adding a "Proliferation" test, to see how quickly a message can be sent to a large number of devices, but due to a lack of testing devices, this will likely have to wait.

Fastest Bounce has already been written and is on the git's development branch. It has not yet been shown to work, nor has it been run for numbers. Since I need two phones at least to run a test, achieving this has been difficult, but should be accomplished soon.