Connect via Bluetooth

Enroute Flight Navigation is able to connect to your traffic data receiver using the Bluetooth Classic radio standard. Compared with Wi-Fi, Bluetooth connections are less reliable and require manual configuration. We found that many Bluetooth adaptors are build with cheap and unreliable hardware and implement industry standards only partially, if at all.

Bluetooth Classic supports only point-to-point connections, so that only one single app can access traffic data at any given time. Pilots and co-pilots must therefore decide who gets to see traffic data and configure their devices appropriately.

Note

At present, Enroute Flight Navigation supports only Bluetooth Classic communication. Bluetooth Low Energy may be supported in the future if there is sufficient demand from the user community.

Note

Access to Bluetooth radio is severely limited on iOS platforms. For that reason, Bluetooth communication is not supported at all on iPhone or iPad devices.

One-time Setup

Step 0: Before You Connect

Before you try to connect this app to your traffic receiver, make sure that the following conditions are met.

  • Your traffic receiver supports Bluetooth Classic radio.

  • You know the Bluetooth name of your traffic receiver.

  • Bluetooth is switched on in your phone.

  • Bluetooth is switched on in your traffic data receiver and set to ‘discoverable mode’.

  • If possible, configure your traffic data receiver to always be in ‘discoverable mode’.

Step 1: Configure a Data Connection to the Bluetooth Classic Device

Follow the steps described in the Section Settings: Data Connections.

Step 2: Check Connectivity

After the data connection to the Bluetooth Classic device has been configured in Step 1, everything else should be automatic. To check, open the main menu and navigate to the “Information” menu. If the entry “Traffic Receiver” is highlighted in green, then Enroute Flight Navigation has already found the traffic receiver and has connected to it. Congratulations, you are done!

If the entry “Traffic Receiver” is not highlighted in green, then something has gone wrong. Open the main menu and go to “Information/Traffic Receiver”. Make sure that your device is in discoverable mode and use the button “Reconnect”. Failing that, you are out of luck.

Daily Operations

Once things are set up properly, your device should automatically detect the traffic receiver’s Bluetooth adaptor and connect to the traffic data stream whenever you go flying. We recommend the following procedure.

  • Bluetooth Classic can handle only one data connection. Before boarding, clarify which device should connect to the traffic data receiver. Ask your co-pilot and all passengers to switch off Bluetooth in all other devices. Make sure that there are no undetected devices (e.g. in someone’s baggage) that could interfere with your data connection.

  • A few moments after you power on the avionics, the traffic receiver’s Bluetooth adaptor will become discoverable. Start Enroute Flight Navigation while the traffic data receiver is discoverable.

  • Enroute Flight Navigation will connect to your traffic data receiver via the configured Bluetooth data connection and show traffic information in the moving map.

  • If the data connection gets lost in mid-flight, Enroute Flight Navigation will automatically try to re-connect. Depending on your hardware, it might be necessary to restart the traffic data receiver in order to enter discoverable mode.