Bluetooth LE (BLE) is a common way for mobile devices to connect to accessories, watches, and toys. Getting that same connectivity on the desktop has been really challenging - every platform does it differently and it's still not very stable. Luckily, there's now a cross-platform way to connect to BLE devices on any computer - Web Bluetooth lets you connect to BLE devices, right from your browser!

In this guide we'll show how you can test BLE devices from Adafruit in the browser, streaming in sensor data, even controlling LEDs and buzzers using the Adafruit Bluefruit Dashboard page.

It works by making a Bluetooth connection to a device, then it queries which services are available and creates interactivity panels in the dashboard for those services. The more services, the more panels. So the Circuit Playground Bluefruit will look different than the Adafruit CLUE because the CLUE has more sensors. The dashboard will then receive notifications from the Bluetooth device and update the data on screen at regular intervals.

This guide will go over:

  • Installing the firmware
  • Preparing Chrome if you have Linux
  • Connecting to the dashboard and using it, and
  • Discuss taking the dashboard further

To get started, all you will need are a Bluetooth board with sensors such as the Circuit Playground Bluefruit, Adafruit CLUE or Feather Bluefruit Sense.

Parts

Animated GIF showing CLUE board  displaying data from the many on-board sensors.
Do you feel like you just don't have a CLUE? Well, we can help with that - get a CLUE here at Adafruit by picking up this sensor-packed development board. We wanted to build some...
Out of Stock
shot of a Black woman's neon-green manicured hand holding up a Circuit Playground Bluefruit glowing rainbow LEDs.
Circuit Playground Bluefruit is our third board in the Circuit Playground series, another step towards a perfect introduction to electronics and programming. We've...
$24.95
In Stock
Angled shot of blue, rectangular, microcontroller.
The Adafruit Feather Bluefruit Sense takes our popular Feather nRF52840 Express and adds a smorgasbord of sensors...
$39.50
In Stock
USB cable - USB A to Micro-B - 3 foot long
This here is your standard A to micro-B USB cable, for USB 1.1 or 2.0. Perfect for connecting a PC to your Metro, Feather, Raspberry Pi or other dev-board or...
$2.95
In Stock

This guide was first published on Mar 06, 2020. It was last updated on Mar 13, 2024.

This page (Overview) was last updated on Mar 08, 2024.

Text editor powered by tinymce.