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Plugin.Maui.NearbyConnections 0.3.0-preview.1

Plugin.Maui.NearbyConnections

A .NET MAUI plugin for peer-to-peer (P2P) connectivity with nearby devices by unifying Google's Nearby Connections and Apple's Multipeer Connectivity capabilities.

👁 NuGet Version
👁 GitHub License

How it works

Peer-to-peer communication happens in two phases.

Phase 1 — Finding peers. One device advertises its presence; another scans for advertisers. This is a continuous IAsyncEnumerable stream of "device appeared" / "device disappeared" events. Nothing is connected yet — you are learning who is nearby.

Phase 2 — Talking to them. Once you pick a peer and connect (or accept their inbound request), a NearbyConnection is established. That object is itself an async stream of incoming payloads, and exposes SendAsync for the outbound direction.

The tier-1 API (INearbyConnections) exposes these two phases directly as AdvertiseAsync / DiscoverAsync streams. For MAUI app code, the tier-2 services (INearbyAdvertiser / INearbyDiscoverer) stitch both phases into a single EventsAsync stream per role — lifecycle events and payload delivery unified, with current state replayed atomically on subscribe.

Supported Platforms

Dependencies

Installation

Plugin.Maui.NearbyConnections is available on nuget.org

dotnet add package Plugin.Maui.NearbyConnections

</details>

Getting Started

1. Register the plugin

// MauiProgram.cs
public static MauiApp CreateMauiApp()
 => MauiApp.CreateBuilder()
 .UseMauiApp<App>()
 .AddNearbyConnections()
 .Build();

2. Platform configuration

Android

Add to AndroidManifest.xml:

<uses-permission android:name="android.permission.BLUETOOTH" android:maxSdkVersion="30"/>
<uses-permission android:name="android.permission.BLUETOOTH_ADMIN" android:maxSdkVersion="30"/>
<uses-permission android:name="android.permission.BLUETOOTH_ADVERTISE" />
<uses-permission android:name="android.permission.BLUETOOTH_CONNECT" />
<uses-permission android:name="android.permission.BLUETOOTH_SCAN" android:usesPermissionFlags="neverForLocation" />
<uses-permission android:name="android.permission.ACCESS_WIFI_STATE" />
<uses-permission android:name="android.permission.CHANGE_WIFI_STATE" />
<uses-permission android:name="android.permission.ACCESS_COARSE_LOCATION" android:maxSdkVersion="32"/>
<uses-permission android:name="android.permission.ACCESS_FINE_LOCATION" android:maxSdkVersion="32"/>
<uses-permission android:name="android.permission.NEARBY_WIFI_DEVICES" android:usesPermissionFlags="neverForLocation" />

iOS

Add to Info.plist:

<key>NSBonjourServices</key>
<array>
 <string>_yourserviceid._tcp</string>
 <string>_yourserviceid._udp</string>
</array>
<key>NSLocalNetworkUsageDescription</key>
<string>Used to discover and connect to nearby devices.</string>

The service ID in NSBonjourServices must match NearbyConnectionsOptions.ServiceId (default: app name).

3. Advertise and discover

One device advertises while the other discovers, or both do both simultaneously.

Advertiser side — accept inbound connection requests

using var cts = new CancellationTokenSource();

await foreach (var request in nearbyConnections.AdvertiseAsync(cts.Token))
{
 Console.WriteLine($"Connection request from: {request.RemoteDevice.DisplayName}");

 // Accept to get an established NearbyConnection
 NearbyConnection connection = await request.AcceptAsync(cts.Token);
 Console.WriteLine($"Connected to {connection.RemoteDevice.DisplayName}");

 // Send and receive on this connection (see section 4)
}

To reject a request call request.RejectAsync() instead of AcceptAsync().

Discoverer side — find devices and initiate a connection

using var cts = new CancellationTokenSource();

await foreach (var evt in nearbyConnections.DiscoverAsync(cts.Token))
{
 if (evt.Type == NearbyDeviceEventType.Found)
 {
 Console.WriteLine($"Found: {evt.Device.DisplayName}");

 NearbyConnection connection = await nearbyConnections.ConnectAsync(evt.Device, cts.Token);
 Console.WriteLine($"Connected to {connection.RemoteDevice.DisplayName}");

 // Send and receive on this connection (see section 4)
 }
}

4. Send and receive data

NearbyConnection is obtained from AcceptAsync (advertiser) or ConnectAsync (discoverer).

Send bytes

byte[] data = Encoding.UTF8.GetBytes("Hello!");
await connection.SendAsync(data, cancellationToken);

Send a file

// Pass a file:// URI, or a content:// URI on Android
await connection.SendAsync("file:///path/to/file.bin", cancellationToken: cancellationToken);

Track send progress

var progress = new Progress<NearbyTransferProgress>(p =>
 Console.WriteLine($"Sent {p.BytesTransferred}/{p.TotalBytes} ({p.Fraction:P0})"));

await connection.SendAsync("file:///path/to/file.bin", progress, cancellationToken);

Receive data

await foreach (var payload in connection.ReceiveAsync(cancellationToken))
{
 if (payload is BytesPayload bytes)
 {
 string message = Encoding.UTF8.GetString(bytes.Data);
 Console.WriteLine($"From {connection.RemoteDevice.DisplayName}: {message}");
 }
 else if (payload is FilePayload file)
 {
 Console.WriteLine($"Received file: {file.FileResult.FullPath}");
 }
}

Received files are saved to NearbyConnectionsOptions.ReceivedFilesDirectory (default: FileSystem.AppDataDirectory).

5. Disconnect and clean up

// Disconnect from a specific peer
await connection.DisposeAsync();

// Stop advertising or discovering by canceling the token passed to AdvertiseAsync/DiscoverAsync
cts.Cancel();

// Dispose the plugin when done (e.g. in page OnDisappearing)
await nearbyConnections.DisposeAsync();

Acknowledgements

• https://github.com/jfversluis/Plugin.Maui.Feature
• https://github.com/puguhsudarma/expo-nearby-connections
• https://github.com/VNAPNIC/flutter_nearby_connections