Headless WiFi Setup Through Mobile and Bluetooth

This project is to enable completely and truly headless WiFi setup through using mobile phone app for devices such as Raspberry Pi, equipped with both bluetooth and wifi.

Once the device-app is installed and running on the device, the provided cordova mobile app (or Evothings app) connects using bluetooth and allows user to select an available WiFi network. The WiFi setting will be remember even if the device is restarted.

Special thanks to Evothings (https://evothings.com/) for the tutorials and example codes which made this possible :)

Device Installation

These instructions have been tested on Raspberry Pi Zero W w/ Raspberrian OS.

• Make sure you have Bluez version 5.x.x or higher installed:

  hcitool | grep ver
  

• Disable builtin bluetooth:

  sudo systemctl stop bluetooth
  sudo systemctl status bluetooth
  sudo systemctl disable bluetooth
  

• Power up the bluetooth device:

  sudo hciconfig hci0 up
  

• Install git and other dependencies:

  sudo apt-get update
  sudo apt-get install git libudev-dev
  

• Install node 5.9.1 or higher

• Clone the repo and test run device-app on the device:

  cd device-app
  npm install
  sudo node index.js
  
  # You should see the following lines:
  #   on -> stateChange: poweredOn
  #   on -> advertisingStart: success
  

• If all works, set it up to run on system boot:

  sudo vi /etc/rc.local
  
  # add the following lines just before exit 0 (the last line)
  hciconfig hci0 up
  nohup node /home/pi/pi-bluetooth-setup/pi-application/index.js &
  

The Mobile App

You may simply install and run the prebuilt Android app available under cordova-app by copying the build to your Android device. Alternatively you may recompile the cordova app or use Evothings Viewer to quickly make edits and test.