Transfer Data Between iOS Devices w/ Bluetooth Low Energy

In 30 hours, a team of five high schoolers had prototyped their iOS application at the HackGenY hackathon earlier this month. The team’s goal was to transform the modern business card as simply as possible. The result is Paer.

Paer is an iOS app that uses Bluetooth Low Energy Tech (BluetoothLE) to enable users to instantly exchange and transfer contact information and connect across numerous social platforms by simply touching phones. BLET is a faster and cheaper alternative to NFC, and the app essentially eliminates business cards by streamlining the process of networking.

Users can input their information, then bump phones with another user, and contact information is shared in real time between the devices. Using PubNub Pub/Sub Messaging, Paer can send data between the users in under a 1/10 second, creating the interactive functionality between the users.

In the video below, check out the app in action, and hear more about the app from one of its founders.

Mobile App/Beacon Development Resources

We’ve built out a couple demos, and have a ton of great mobile SDKs for building applications like Paer. You can use PubNub as the messaging data transfer layer, and communicate between mobile devices in under a 1/10 second. We’ve also recently ramped up our beacon technology implementations, and have a couple blog posts below to get started.

• PubNub iOS SDK and Documentation
• Building Two-way iBeacon Communication with Swift
• Building Smart Beacon Tech w/ Two-way Communication (also covers the difference between BluetoothLE and beacon technology)
• Converting Your JavaScript App to an Android App w/ PhoneGap
• Converting Your JavaScript App to an iOS App w/ PhoneGap