We manufacture custom devices which are controlled by iOS app. Currently all the communication is using BLE but for next generation we want to stream a video from the device (over WiFi). I'm trying to find a way for the user to connect to the device from the app - basically estabilishing WiFi link without user having to go to the Settings, connect to the device AP manually, etc.
Options explored so far:
- NEHotspotHelper - this looked like it could simplify the process but Apple declined to provide the entitlement for us. In the end I believe there would be some manual action needed from user anyway.
- Multipeer connectivity - this only works between iOS devices
- Apple WAC - this would only help if the device was to connect to the same network as the phone but that's not what we need
- NSNetService (Bonjour + TCP/IP) - too slow, not enough bandwidth for video streaming
- Third party p2p libraries for connecting directly to the device without access point - currently having look at some of these, haven't found much yet
Is there any way in iOS? We wouldn't mind putting MFi chip inside if it helps but even within MFi docs I couldn't find anything which would help us.
Thanks