BLE Setup

Before sending and receiving data, it is first necessary to configure the BLE connection for communication.

Below is an overview of setting up communication. See the relevant section below for more information:

1. Ensure the camera is connectable and in pairing mode
2. Scan to discover advertisements from GoPro peripheral devices (which can be narrowed by limiting to peripherals that advertise service 0xFEA6)
3. Connect to a discovered peripheral device
4. Finish pairing with the peripheral device
5. Discover all advertised services and characteristics
6. Subscribe to notifications from all characteristics that have the notify flag set
7. Perform GoPro-specific-setup

Pairing Mode

In order for the camera to be discoverable and allow connections, it must first be put into pairing mode via the camera UI.

Advertisements

Once in pairing mode, the camera will send BLE advertisements while it is ON and for the first 8 hours after the camera is put to sleep. During this time, the camera is discoverable and can be connected to. If the camera is in sleep mode, connecting to it will cause the camera to wake and boot up.

The following sections detail the Advertising and Scan Response data. This data consists of BLE Spec defined Type-Length-Value fields such as Manufacturer Specific Data and Service Data. These fields are identified via the "AD Type" column where the integer value is specified in Section 2.3 of the Bluetooth Assigned Numbers.

The data is parsed differently depending on the schema version of the advertisement which is specified in the Manufacturer Data field as shown below.

Schema Version 2

Advertising Data

AD Type	Byte(s)	Description	Bit Documentation	Notes
Flags (1)	0	Flags Length		Always 2
	1	Flags AD Type		Always 1
	2	Flags		See section 1.3 of the BLE Spec Core Supplement
Incomplete 16-bit Service UUIDs (2)	3	UUIDs length		Always 3
	4	UUIDs AD type		Always 2
	5-6	UUIDs		Little Endian. Always 0xFEA6. This can be used to filter for GoPros
Manufacturer Data (16)	7	Manufacturer Data Length		Always 15
	8	Manufacturer Data AD Type		Always 0xFF
	9-10	Company ID		Always 0xF202
	11	Schema Version		Always 2
	12	Camera Status	Bit 0: Processor State (0 == low power, 1 == awake) Bit 1: WiFi AP State (0 == off, 1 == on) Bit 2: Peripheral Pairing State (0 == not pairing, 1 == pairing) Bit 3: Is Central Role Enabled? Bit 4: Is New Media Available? Bits 5-7: Reserved
	13	Model ID		See Supported Cameras
	14	Camera Capabilities	Bit 0: Command and Control - Supports Command, Settings, and Query characteristics Bit 1: BLE Metadata - LE Sensor Data GATT Characteristics Bit 2: Wideband Audio Bit 3: Concurrent Master Slave Bit 4: Onboarding - Supports Onboarding 2.0 Bit 5: New Media Available - Supports status bit for New Media Available Bits 6-7: Reserved
	15-21	Reserved
	22	Media Offload Status	Bit 0: Available Bit 1: New Media Available Bit 2: Battery OK Bit 3: SD Card OK Bit 4: Busy Bit 5: Paused Bits 6-7: Reserved

Scan Response Data

AD Type	Byte(s)	Description	Notes
Local Name (9)	0	Local Name Length	Always 11
	1	Local Name AD Type	Always 9
	2-11	Local Name	ASCII Camera Name, i.e. "GoPro 1234"
Service Data (22)	12	Service Data Length	Always 11
	13	Service Data AD Type	Always 22
	14-15	Service Data UUID	Always 0xFEA6
	16-19	AP MAC Address
	20-23	Partial Serial Number	Last 4 digits of the serial number as ASCII

Schema Version 3

The major modifications in this schema version are:

• The ability to access more serial number characters. Now all characters are retrievable except for the first 4.
• A variant field to denote camera hardware variants such as colors.

Advertising Data

AD Type	Byte(s)	Description	Bit Documentation	Notes
Flags (1)	0	Flags Length		Always 2
	1	Flags AD Type		Always 1
	2	Flags		See section 1.3 of the BLE Spec Core Supplement
Incomplete 16-bit Service UUIDs (2)	3	UUIDs length		Always 3
	4	UUIDs AD type		Always 2
	5-6	UUIDs		Little Endian. Always 0xFEA6. This can be used to filter for GoPros
Manufacturer Data (16)	7	Manufacturer Data Length		Always 15
	8	Manufacturer Data AD Type		Always 0xFF
	9-10	Company ID		Always 0xF202
	11	Schema Version		Always 3
	12	Camera Status	Bit 0: Processor State (0 == low power, 1 == awake) Bit 1: WiFi AP State (0 == off, 1 == on) Bit 2: Peripheral Pairing State (0 == not pairing, 1 == pairing) Bit 3: Is Central Role Enabled? Bit 4: Is New Media Available? Bits 5-7: Reserved
	13	Model ID		See Supported Cameras
	14	Camera Capabilities	Bit 0: Command and Control - Supports Command, Settings, and Query characteristics Bit 1: BLE Metadata - LE Sensor Data GATT Characteristics Bit 2: Wideband Audio Bit 3: Concurrent Master Slave Bit 4: Onboarding - Supports Onboarding 2.0 Bit 5: New Media Available - Supports status bit for New Media Available Bit 6: Is SSID Fixed - Always 1 indicating that the WiFi SSID is immutable Bit 7: Contains variant data - Always 1 indicating that the Product Variant Bytes are available
	15	Reserved
	16-19	Variant		Bytes to denote camera hardware variants (not yet defined)
	20-21	Serial Number 4-5		4th and 5th characters of the serial number as ASCII
	22	Media Offload Status	Bit 0: Available Bit 1: New Media Available Bit 2: Battery OK Bit 3: SD Card OK Bit 4: Busy Bit 5: Paused Bits 6-7: Reserved

Scan Response Data

AD Type	Byte(s)	Description	Notes
Local Name (9)	0	Local Name Length	Always 11
	1	Local Name AD Type	Always 9
	2-11	Local Name	ASCII Camera Name, i.e. "GoPro 1234"
Service Data (22)	12	Service Data Length	Always 16
	13	Service Data AD Type	Always 22
	14-15	Service Data UUID	Always 0xFEA6
	16-19	AP MAC Address
	20-27	Serial Number 6-13	Last 8 characters of the serial number as ASCII

Finish Pairing

In order to communicate with a GoPro camera via BLE, a client must first be paired with the camera. The pairing procedure must be done once for each new client. If the camera is factory reset, all clients will need to pair again. The camera will store pairing information so subsequent connections with this client do not require pairing.

Configure GATT Characteristics

In order to enable two-way communication with a GoPro camera, clients must subscribe to characteristics that have the notify flag set. Best practice is to query the GATT table to dynamically discover all notifiable characteristics. Alternatively, see the GATT table below.

warning

The GoPro device does not support the BLE feature of caching these subscriptions so the characteristics must be re-subscribed for upon each connection.

BLE Characteristics

note

GP-XXXX is shorthand for GoPro's 128-bit UUID: b5f9XXXX-aa8d-11e3-9046-0002a5d5c51b

Service UUID	Service	Characteristic UUID	Description	Permissions
GP-0001	GoPro Wifi Access Point	GP-0002	WiFi AP SSID	Read
		GP-0003	WiFi AP Password	Read
		GP-0004	WiFi AP Power	Write
		GP-0005	WiFi AP State	Read / Indicate
GP-0090	GoPro Camera Management	GP-0091	Network Management Command	Write
		GP-0092	Network Management Response	Notify
FEA6	Control & Query	GP-0072	Command	Write
		GP-0073	Command Response	Notify
		GP-0074	Settings	Write
		GP-0075	Settings Response	Notify
		GP-0076	Query	Write
		GP-0077	Query Response	Notify

Send Messages

Messages are sent to the camera by writing to a write-enabled UUID and then waiting for a notification from the corresponding response / notification UUID. Responses and notifications indicate whether the message was valid and will be (asynchronously) processed. For example, to send a camera control command, a client should write to GP-0072 and then wait for a response notification from GP-0073.

See the following Protocol sections for steps to build and parse messages.

GoPro Setup

This section details the GoPro-specific steps that are needed to configure / prepare the camera for communication.

Wait for Camera BLE Readiness

It takes some time for the camera's BLE communication to become ready after establishing connection. In order to verify readiness, the client shall continuously poll Get Hardware Info until it returns a success status.