Many people are familiar with Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) for connecting peripherals such as mice and keyboards or event some headphones or earbuds. However, BLE can do so much more. Did you know you can transfer files over BLE? This is the basis for being able to edit CircuitPython files directly on your device.

Adafruit has been working on a new web-based Code Editor for CircuitPython. This allows you to edit files directly on your Bluetooth devices using just the Chrome web browser without installing any additional software. The great thing about this code editor is it is written completely in JavaScript, so it only runs on your computer and none of your data is ever uploaded to a server.

Last year's guide called Using the Bluefruit Dashboard with Web Bluetooth in Chrome used Web Bluetooth to read sensors on a few of the devices Adafruit offers. This was great for being able to test out all of the sensors on the boards, but the code running on the board was written in Arduino.

With the Code Editor, however, all of the BLE functions are built into CircuitPython itself and so you can have it run any CircuitPython script you would like while still retaining the ability to remotely edit your files.

To get started, all you will need are a Bluetooth board with the nRF52840 chip such as the Circuit Playground Bluefruit, Adafruit CLUE, Feather nRF52840 Express, Feather nRF52840 Sense, BBC micro:bit V2, LED Glasses Driver, or one of a number of other Bluetooth boards that run CircuitPython.

Parts

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
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
Angled shot of a Adafruit Feather nRF52840 Express.
The Adafruit Feather nRF52840 Express is the new Feather family member with Bluetooth Low Energy and native USB support featuring the nRF52840!  It's...
$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
Angled shot of a BBC micro:bit v2.
Meet the new BBC micro:bit v2 - Upgraded with a powerful new processor that has tons more capability and also adds more sensing with a new speaker and...
$17.95
In Stock
Angled shot of Adafruit LED Glasses Driver.
This board is designed to be a thin, bluetooth-enabled driver board for our Adafruit LED Glasses RGB LED matrix. That said, it's...
$24.95
In Stock

This guide was first published on Nov 16, 2021. It was last updated on Mar 08, 2024.

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

Text editor powered by tinymce.