Adafruit CircuitPython supports using Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) to communicate wirelessly with BLE devices, phones, tablets, and with other CircuitPython boards. Adafruit provides many libraries to make this easy and to support specific devices.
Now you can use those same libraries (or write your own) on any host computer--Windows, Mac, or Linux--that has BLE hardware. Most modern computers, especially laptops, already have Bluetooth hardware built in. If not, you can plug in a USB adapter such as Adafruit's Bluetooth 4.0 USB Module.
The Adafruit Blinka bleio library makes this possible. It is a regular Python library that runs on desktop Python, not on CircuitPython boards. It re-implements the _bleio module that is part of CircuitPython: all our BLE libraries are ultimately based on _bleio.
The Blinka bleio library only supports acting in a BLE central role. You can connect to peripheral devices, such as heart rate monitors, pulse oximeters, bicycle sensors, etc., but you cannot act as a peripheral yourself with this code.
The Blinka bleio library is part of the family of "Blinka" libraries that run under regular Python and implement CircuitPython functionality, including Blinka and Blinka displayio.
This guide will explain how to get Python set up on your host computer, how to install the Blinka bleio library, and then give some examples of how to use it.
