I'm totally new in the Arduino 101 universe. Actually I haven't even bought one yet because I don't know if it is the right choice for me.
My problem is that, I want to communicate to the Arduino 101 via bluetooth from my computer. My computer does support BLE as far as I know. The Arduino, depending on the message from the computer, should be able to transmit data to a third device via the seriel port in the Arduino 101. When all this is done the third device should respond the arduino and at last the Arduino should transmit the respond back to the computer via bluetooth.
Do you know the amount of hardware seriel ports in the Arduino 101?
Im in doubt about there is enough hardware seriel ports because I actually need 2 to make my complete system work. I have read that the build-in USB in the Arduino can only be used for USB-host devices like computers and I can only see 1 hardware seriel port on pin 0 and 1 in the Arduino 101 board.
Additionally, I am not sure about which seriel port the BLE on-board uses?
Hope I explain myself good enough, otherwise I will try to reword.
I don't think you need worry about what "port" the BLE uses.
Think of that as a seperate entity entirely.
That leaves you with the accepted COM on pins 0 & 1.
That effectively leaves you with the 101 acting as a "middle man" as per your synopsis.
Should you need another COM port then there is "software serial" libraries available which allow you to define further pins as serial ports.
Also IIRC there are other pins which can also be accessed at a higher level of programming and redefined as serial.
Do take note that pins 0 & 1 are usually used by the USB port so should not be in use during a sketch upload.
Much better than I could explain. the better hits are listed in the forum search option at the top of the page here. Use that to confine the search to just the Arduino forums.
Okay thank you. Then it would fulfil my requirements I guess. But the software seriel ports has some limitations as far as I know of compared to hardware seriel ports. For instance data rate. I don't know what data rate I will need yet though.
If using multiple serial ports, lets say 1 hardware serial port and 1 software serial port, can both the ports then receive data at a time? I know this is a limitation if there are two software ports.