Android emulators are great for developing BluetoothLE applications. The trick is getting the Android emulator to recognize the BluetoothLE adapter.
What you’ll need:
- Androidx86 iso from android-x86.org I used the 4.4 release candidate
- Virtual Machine software: I used Oracle VirtualBox
- A BluetoothLE USB adapter: I used the Cirago Bluetooth 4.0 USB Mini Adapter (BTA8000)
- Android SDK for debugging
- Install VirtualBox
- Download Androidx86
- Open VirtualBox and create a new machine. Set type to linux/other(32bit)
- Set the virtual machine’s memory and harddrive space to whatever you need (but at least the minimum specs for Android).
- When asked for the OS image, select the Androidx86 image you download from Androidx86.org
- When the virtual machine boots, choose to install Android.
- When the installation completes, shutdown the Android virtual machine and unmount the iso image
- Plug in the Bluetooth USB adapter and add it to the Android Virtual Machine’s settings
- Start the Android Virtual Machine and go through the start-up screens to configure Android for use
- In the Android VM go to the settings and enable BluetoothLE (if this fails reboot the VM and try to enable again)