Kosmik BT + iOS = True, almost…

What’s the issue?

Difficulty in pairing Kontronik’s Bluetooth-module and iOS to understand each other. Kontronik’s manual is a bit vague on the subject, I’d like to go so far and say it’s wrong.

So, here’s the how-to, added with a warning.

Equipment used in this article

  • Kontronik Kosmik 200 COOL firmware 4.8
  • Kontronik Bluetooth module
  • iPhone 6 iOS 9.2
  • K-PROG 3.0 (requires iOS 8.0+)
  • K-VIEW 3.0 (requires iOS 8.0+)

How to pair?

The order of things is specific, so follow this guide:

  • Ensure BT is on in iOS
  • Connect battery to Kosmik (Take care of safety, remove blades / motor-cables!)
  • Start K-PROG, ESC LED1 starts to blink yellow after initialization
  • Press ESC button (LED1 blinking stops)
  • On iOS allow pairing, wait a while
  • Close K-PROG
  • Disconnect battery from ESC

You’re done. Re-connect battery, start K-PROG or K-VIEW and enjoy. (Note: On one pairing occasion I had to repeat the process, it could be the “unit was paired before”-thing Kontronik is mentioning with android.)

What can you do with iOS and Kontronik Bluetooth?

You can (in theory) program ESC with your iOS-device with K-PROG-app. And after flight you can see statistics and so on with K-VIEW-app.

K-VIEW

Works as it should, no issues there as can be seen in pictures below, click for larger version. I’ve used this before I became a Jeti + JLog-user, nice to look for high-values after flight.

Photo-2015-12-23-23-14-35_2920  Photo-2015-12-23-23-14-56_2923  Photo-2015-12-23-23-15-01_2924  Photo-2015-12-23-23-14-50_2922  Photo-2015-12-23-23-14-39_2921

K-PROG

The disturbing thing is, K-PROG does NOT WORK CORRECTLY! I’m strongly advising users not to use it until issues are sorted out by Kontronik!

Let’s have a look on my Kosmik’s settings:

Settings

These settings do not always appear correctly on K-PROG! There is a risk of user in programming wrong values to wrong places. I tried this several times and could not find any logic to why and where in the app the error would show up. Update-frequency is a bit slow to start with which made things a bit harder to diagnose but anyway, if you have to use K-PROG make sure to check every value before quitting the app!

Screenshots of some of K-PROG screens below.

Photo-2015-12-23-22-36-04_2897  Photo-2015-12-23-22-36-28_2899  Photo-2015-12-23-22-36-36_2900  Photo-2015-12-23-22-36-48_2901  Photo-2015-12-23-22-36-12_2898

Bluntly put, this is messed up, and what’s most important, this might be outright dangerous. What is also interesting, this issue does not appear on any of my android-devices.

One thing to note also is that even if you need to specifically activate the programming mode in K-PROG there is one thing I do not like: Touch any of the input-boxes in the app and software goes automatically to programming mode. (ESC beeps and app’s first-page “Programming mode”-button is activated.) In my opinion this might be a hazardous thing, it is after all a touchscreen-device where we users occasionally touch wrong things.

Conclusion

For programming, ProgUNIT is still golden, you need it anyway to update the ESC. Or an Android until Kontronik get’s this fixed. K-VIEW works as it should. If you are a iOS-only user you should consider the benefit’s of the bluetooth-module, that is up to you. I do believe Kontronik will fix these issues eventually. It only took them about a year to get the iOS-versions out after they pulled previous from app-store. By the way, the old version worked…

As usual, any questions, drop me a line!

Update 13.01.2016

Kontronik contacted me today due this story and they are very interested in my findings about the errors in K-PROG. Also the annoyance of auto-entering program mode will be fixed. I’m helping them in any way I can, stay tuned!

7 thoughts on “Kosmik BT + iOS = True, almost…

  1. Good article, I didn't know the iOS versions were back on the app store. I've loaded K-PROG and K-VIEW and will try using them on my ESC this evening. How do I know if the K-PROG app has been fixed? What version did you test in January?

  2. What is the current status of this Kontronik iOS app issue? Has it been resolved?

    1. It's been the same since 17 December 2015, no updates unfortunately after the first findings. According app store last updates are from december 2015.

  3. And again in nov 2018, what is the current status of this Kontronik IOS application issue? Has it been finally resolved?

      1. No I couldn’t test the version 5 since it’s impossible to connect an iPhone XS to the Kontronik Bluetooth module…

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