My attempt at locating my iPhone from my Pebble Watch using Bluetooth Latency (It didn't work) (programming.dev)

submitted 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) by the16bitgamer@programming.dev to c/programming@programming.dev

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Just wanted to share an idea I had, in order to hope that another developer learns from my lessons, and hopefully either finds a work around or a better solution to this problem.

I wanted to find out if it was possible to locate your iPhone from your watch based on the latency of Bluetooth messages, since RSSI (signal strength) isn't available. I made a simple app, and started sending messages back and forth between my phone and app.

After much testing, the conclusion is no. Mostly because Bluetooth is amazing and the average latency for a message is 58-62ms. And because as Erik pointed out... apple just sucks.

I am hopeful PebbleOS can be updated to see RSSI or the app can expose the notification api to the PebbleKit JS.

If anyone want me to publish my code, let me know.

The raw data is here if you want to see it: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1Yr5XX0CXh5TifsnW3yOp10ZoaA_xx0q189f_fG8rMTU/edit?usp=sharing

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[-] FizzyOrange@programming.dev 2 points 13 hours ago

adding RSSI might only work on newer devices, since classic pebbles are just Bluetooth and Bluetooth le

I don't follow. It's extremely unlikely that the actual hardware doesn't give you RSSI.

[-] the16bitgamer@programming.dev 1 points 4 hours ago

If I am right I don’t think Pebble watches has Bluetooth LE, it has the ability to broadcast itself but once connected uses Bluetooth. The OS doesn’t expose LE so I don’t think getting the signal strength is possible

[-] FizzyOrange@programming.dev 3 points 3 hours ago

RSSI just means Received Signal Strength Indicator. Any radio system can provide it - it's not specific to BLE.

Bluetooth classic can provide RSSI too. Maybe the OS doesn't expose currently it but that's why I was suggesting modifying the OS. The only difficulty might be if the drivers are closed source, but worth a look I reckon!

this post was submitted on 11 Apr 2026

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