OSC over Bluetooth - is it possible?

Not sure this is the right place for this thread as I don’t have issues with OSC as such, but can’t figure out where else my question would fit.

What I’m trying to do is use an old iPhone as a display near the footswitch. I know how to send OSC from GP, how to have them displayed on the phone etc, that’s not the problem.

I just don’t want to use WiFi for the connection and would greatly prefer Bluetooth

And while we’re at it, what’s the best way to avoid using static IP addresses, is there a way to have some sort of auto discovery or broadcast OSC commands over UDP from GP? All messages are only sent from GP to the phone, never back.

Oh, and it’s probably worth mentioning that I’m using a Mac.

Broadcast address is 255.255.255.255

No TCP/IP over bluetooth as far as I know

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It is certainly technically possible - BLE is used for IoT, and regular phones use BT for tethering.

Yes but they’re communicating over a Bluetooth protocol which is different than TCP/IP

You can layer TCP/IP on top of Bluetooth but that is different. The Bluetooth protocol itself is not an IP protocol. As far as I know, you would have to use a Bluetooth to IP gateway, for example.

Sure, BT is the physical layer (just as WiFi is), it ensures the medium through which the connection is possible, sort of.

So some kind of tcpip over Bluetooth implementation is needed for this to work in practice.

The question is does such an implementation exist? Tethering is one, but it comes with stuff I don’t need.

Does this work with your older iPhone ?

This requires a laptop or tablet running windows XP SP2 or later, Vista, Windows 7 or Mac OS 10.4.11 or later. And you must be able to use Bluetooth 2.0 on it.

First switch on Bluetooth on your iPhone and on your laptop or tablet.

Now ‘pair’ your iPhone with your laptop or tablet, then connect. Here’s how…

If your laptop or tablet uses Windows

  1. Click on the Bluetooth icon in your iPhone’s Notification area (the system tray)
  2. Select Add a Bluetooth device, and follow the onscreen instructions
  3. When you’ve successfully paired your iPhone with your laptop or tablet, click on the Bluetooth icon in the Notification area again
  4. Select Show Bluetooth devices
  5. Highlight your iPhone, and then click the Properties button
  6. Now click the Services tab
  7. Then tick the Wireless iAP checkbox, and click OK
  8. To connect your Windows laptop or tablet, click on the Bluetooth icon in your iPhone’s Notification area (system tray)
  9. Click on Join A Personal Area Network
  10. Now click Connect.

Your devices are now tethered. Browse away.

If your laptop or tablet is a Mac

  1. Open your iPhone’s Bluetooth Preferences
  2. Click on Set Up New Device and follow the onscreen instructions
  3. When you’ve successfully paired your iPhone to your Mac, choose the option Use Device as a Network Port on your iPhone
  4. To connect your Mac laptop or iPad to your iPhone, click on the Bluetooth icon in the menu bar
  5. Click on your iPhone, and then choose Connect to Network.

Your iPhone should now have a blue bar at the top of the screen to show that tethering is up and running.

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There’s no such button in Bluetooth preferences. I see my computer in the “Other Devices” list, but clicking it gets a popup that says that paring was unsuccessful and the device is not supported. It doesn’t work either with the old phone or the latest one.

On the Mac, phones don’t show up at all in the list of devices to connect to.

Stuff like continuity and screen mirroring work fine with both phones, although I’m not sure whether those features use Bluetooth or WiFi.

It appears that Apple in their eternal wisdom removed the option to pair Macs with iOS devices and consider that this isn’t needed because Macs and iPhones communicate via Bluetooth without paring. Applications can use that connection, there are some that do MIDI over Bluetooth, for example. Or internet connection sharing can also work this way. The problem of course is that such connection seems to be useless for my purposes.