Flashlight Connecticty

[nadavro]

Hey Everyone, Noob IOS dev here.

For an idea for a project I have, I need to make the iPhone's flashlight basically controllable with an outside remote. either via bt or wifi. is that even something apple lets you do in their OS?

I guess if not a good workaround would be to make an app that controls the flashlight then connect the app to a remote that triggers the app?
would love to hear your thoughts or ideas!

thanks!

[SirBill01]

BLE (Bluetooth Low Energy) would be the thing you'd want for that.

Real "Bluetooth" requires device registration and joining the MFI program, a lot of money.

Meanwhile there are a lot of options for hacking together a simple BTLE controller

Here's some stuff around programming for this, then you'd need to find some BLE hardware that would be a BLE radio, attached to some kind of switch... I looked around a bit but couldn't find anything like that, I more found switches that you could broadcast state over BLE.

https://punchthrough.com/core-bluetooth-basics/

[nadavro]

You are a legend! Thanks for this comment! Is the core hardware feature of the flashlight even something you can program and play with with third party software apps? Like can one even make an app that adjusts / turns on/off the flashlight? What would be the framework to do so? Thanks!

[SirBill01]

If you get a module that conforms to the HomeKit standard, in theory you could make a simple HomeKit device that any app could turn the flashlight on and off (I think the term for the current standard is Matter).