Proposal: Bluetooth LE announcements API

SDK Feature Requests
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I’d like to be able to make a local Gossip protocol mesh with Playdate devices so they can have drop-in drop-out local multiplayer. It would just need the ability to send and receive announcements from the app layer – not full bluetooth connect support. I think this would be very cool at meetups and conferences!

If the hardware supports the Data Length Extension in its Bluetooth 4.2 driver and radio firmware, it gives ~250 bytes of game state to sync across the Gossip mesh. This should be plenty for Rogue-like MUDs, hide and seek games, co-op building, … all kinds of cute and fun games.

My (now) 10 year old child loves the Playdate, but it’s not exactly a co-op activity device. I’m hoping this BLE announcement feature being available would allow us to make a game that changes that.

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Where did you see that? As far as I’m aware we don’t have any immediate plans to add BLE networking.

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Sorry, to be clear, “announcement” here is Bluetooth LE protocol terminology.

I read a hardware teardown article that mentioned a Bluetooth 4.2-capable radio in the device, so I assumed this would be software-available at some point. I understand that audio connections and other bluetooth drivers are a nightmare web of complexity, but I think sticking to sending and listening just for BLE announcements might be a nice way to let Playdate players do some local co-op cranking while keeping platform maintenance/support risk relatively low :slight_smile:

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