Bonjour Communication

Question

Created Jul ’20

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Hello,

I am working on a project and my goal is to make a communication between multiple apple watches and single iPhone. Which means from apple watches need to send data to iPhone without internet.

Conditions

Need to communicate with multiple devices at a time
No internet connection available
Watches are not paired with iPhone

So how can be this possible. I heard about Bonjour but the is idea is not clear. Is there any limitation foe number of devices that can connect at a time in bonjour?

Thank you.

Answered by DTS Engineer in 618257022

I don’t think there’s a way to achieve this goal. The main sticking point is this:

Watches are not paired with iPhone

If the watches were paired, you could use WatchConnectivity for this. But they’re not, so you have to use a low-level networking API. That’s not going to work for the reasons outlined by Matt in Low-Level Networking on watchOS.

Share and Enjoy
—
Quinn “The Eskimo!” @ Developer Technical Support @ Apple
let myEmail = "eskimo" + "1" + "@apple.com"

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Answer 1

DTS Engineer OP

Apple

Jul ’20

Accepted Answer

I don’t think there’s a way to achieve this goal. The main sticking point is this:

Watches are not paired with iPhone

If the watches were paired, you could use WatchConnectivity for this. But they’re not, so you have to use a low-level networking API. That’s not going to work for the reasons outlined by Matt in Low-Level Networking on watchOS.

Share and Enjoy
—
Quinn “The Eskimo!” @ Developer Technical Support @ Apple
let myEmail = "eskimo" + "1" + "@apple.com"

1

Answer 2

anjupaul OP

Jul ’20

Thanks for your reply,

Is there any possibility to communicate through wifi router?

0

Answer 3

DTS Engineer OP

Apple

Jul ’20

Is there any possibility to communicate through wifi router?

Not in general. The restriction on access to low-level networking is enforced on the watch itself, not anywhere on the network. If the router had, say, an HTTP endpoint that you could use for communication using high-level APIs (specifically, NSURLSession) but most Wi-Fi routers don’t have that sort of thing.

Hmmm, actually, that suggests one possibility: You could run an HTTP server on your iPhone and have the watches talk to it via NSURLSession. There’s two potential challenges here:

Ensuring that the iPhone and all the watches are on the same Wi-Fi
Service discovery

Share and Enjoy
—
Quinn “The Eskimo!” @ Developer Technical Support @ Apple
let myEmail = "eskimo" + "1" + "@apple.com"

1

Answer 4

anjupaul OP

Jul ’20

Hi,

Thank you so much for you reply.

In this case all the watches are connected in same Wi-Fi. And it would be very helpful if you can elaborate the point Service discovery.

Next concern is how many devices can communicate through Wi-Fi at a time and what could be the maximum distance between devices to communicate?

0

Answer 5

DTS Engineer OP

Apple

Jul ’20

it would be very helpful if you can elaborate the point service discovery.

If a client wants to connect to a server, it needs to know the address of that server. If the server is out on the wider Internet, folks usually solve this problem by hard coding a DNS name. Things are not that easy on a local network. The usual solution here is Bonjour, but that’s not going to work for you on watchOS.

Next concern is how many devices can communicate through Wi-Fi at a time and what could be the maximum distance between devices to communicate?

Neither of these questions have straightforward answers; it depends on how the Wi-Fi is set up, the specifics of the APs and the STAs (see my Wi-Fi Fundamentals for an explanation of the terms I use), the specifics of the protocol, and so on.

Share and Enjoy
—
Quinn “The Eskimo!” @ Developer Technical Support @ Apple
let myEmail = "eskimo" + "1" + "@apple.com"

0

Answer 6

anjupaul OP

Jul ’20

Hi,

Thank you so much.

0