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Buttonless boards have no way to reopen the pairing window once a phone is bonded

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#54 0 comments 0 reactions 0 assignees View on GitHub

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Assessment

Difficulty
5/5
Estimated time
Over a week
Newbie friendliness
35/100
Issue type
Feature
Clarity
Mostly clear
Activity status
Active
Tech stack
rust
Domain
embedded-iot, security

Research direction

Read docs/ble.md and the changes discussed in #9, #18, and #46 to understand the current pairing-window behavior. The issue proposes several possible recovery paths, including a new system command, a physical action, authenticated pairing, or app guidance, but does not choose one. Done means a buttonless board can add, replace, or remove phones without erasing flash while preventing strangers from opening the pairing window.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Description

enhancement

Part of #9. Follow-up to #18 / #46.

Problem

  • Since #46, a board without a pairing button (e.g. the WiCAN) opens the pairing window at boot only while no phone is bonded. Once a phone is bonded, nothing can open it again.
  • RemovePairedPhone / ClearPairedPhones also need an open window, so a buttonless board can't manage its phones at all after first setup.
  • If the owner's phone loses its bond (forgotten in Android's Bluetooth settings, app reinstalled, new phone), it's locked out. With the window closed the device advertises without its name or service UUID, so the app doesn't even find it. Tested on a WiCAN with #46: the phone reconnects as a known identity but never re-encrypts, and no bond is stored.
  • The only recovery today is erasing the flash over USB.

Ideas

  • A deliberate action that opens the window:
    • a system command from a bonded phone (needs a new message in contracts);
    • a physical action, such as unplugging and replugging the device a set number of times within a short time.
  • Use authenticated pairing (passkey or numeric comparison) where the hardware allows it, e.g. a code shown in the app and confirmed with a pattern on the device's LED. This was an idea in #18 and goes away when it closes.
  • In the app, when a previously paired device isn't found, explain the recovery instead of scanning forever (mobile-app side, like OpenCarControls/mobile-app#42 for the reverse case).
  • Update docs/ble.md, which currently says "such a board is reset by erasing its flash".

Done when
The owner of a buttonless board can add, replace or remove a phone without erasing the flash, and a stranger near the car still can't open the window.

Dominant language
Rust
Stars
1
Forks
0
Avg merge
10h 56m
Merged PRs (30d)
15

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