Develop Reference

How to know target device in WiFi direct?

I am trying to connect to my device from another device and send a simple string via wifi direct.
I was able to get the list of peers available however how do I know that this is my device that I need to send the info to?

The documention at https://developer.android.com/reference/android/net/wifi/p2p/WifiP2pManager.html outlines this scenerio.
With peer discovery using discoverPeers(WifiP2pManager.Channel, WifiP2pManager.ActionListener), an application discovers the neighboring peers, but has no good way to figure out which peer to establish a connection with. For example, if a game application is interested in finding all the neighboring peers that are also running the same game, it has no way to find out until after the connection is setup. Pre-association service discovery is meant to address this issue of filtering the peers based on the running services.
Try using addLocalService(), so you peer devices can discover your "simple string" p2p service.

Android wifi hotspot client connection events

I am connecting different devices with wifi hotspot AP programatically in my android app, How can i detect the clients being connected and disconnected and to the wifi hotspot AP i turned on programmatically ? Is there any callback event in Android API to give information regarding the connection or disconnection events of individual devices ?
Thanks in advance.

I think you need to use WifiP2pDevice
There you can check for available devices, and also if they are connected or not.
Try looking here at the available methods here
EDIT:
This Android Wifi Hotspot Manager Class have sample code to scan /proc/net/arp and ping each known client to detect livelihood.
You can implement that logic in a loop to emulate a Wifi Client disconnect event from driver.

How to start a local network connection programmatically via Wi-Fi hotspot on Android?

I want to start a local network connection using the built-in Wi-Fi hotspot on Android devices.
Is there a way to accomplish it?
And how to communicate between two devices?
EDIT:
I want to do it programmatically. Then I can transfer my own data between devices.

I haven't done this before, so my answer is all theoretical.
I think what you need to do is declare one device the server and start its hotspot manually with a known name.
Start / stop built-in Wi-Fi / USB tethering from code? (According to this question, you can't start hotspot programatically).
Once you have the hotspot set up, you start up the server app and wait for incoming connections. The server app can show you the ip address or hostname.
On the clients, you can do a simple check and see if the hotspot name is around and automatically connect to it if you find it. See this link for connecting to a network:
Using WifiManager to connect to a network
As for your second question, how to communicate - you need to establish a connection between the devices. For this, you need the ip address of the server. The simplest thing to do would be to show the ip address on the server UI and then manually enter it on the clients and press connect. It would then establish a connection to the server on a known port and you can send messages between client and server.
For reference, I found NanoHttpd, which is a webserver for Android. It uses ServerSocket to listen for incoming connections.

Possible answers:
Before ICS and non rooted devices
There is no way you can connect to a device over wifi. There is no API to do. Bluetooth is your best option or user interaction.
Before ICS and rooted devices
I am not sure if someone hacked the code, but when I tried to do an automatic connection to a wifi spot I noticed:
The api is hidden inside the SDK.
The method that does the connection checks the thread who ask for it. If it's not the os thread, it throws an exception.
Using ICS
With ICS there is a new way to connect devices through wifi called Wi-Fi Direct.
Here is a link with some demos.

If you are going to develop your own application for each and every individual terminals(devices) then i think for you socket programming will do the trick .
Yes , android supports socket programming in the same was as java socket programming .
1st google java socket programming tutorials and then you can using the same knowledge in android .
Also do remember to include the uses internet permission in the manifest , actually thats something which ate my brains for a long time :)

You mean communication between wifi enabled devices without any server like p2p? if so its wifi direct which is supported in ICS check this out http://developer.android.com/reference/android/net/wifi/p2p/package-summary.html
Before ICS there is no standard android API for wifi direct, though Galaxy S2 has wifi direct it uses proprietary API's which 3rd party devs can't use.

i dont know programmically create wify LAN,but you can create wify LAN manually,then you can do java tcp/udp program as said by brianestey
"As for your second question, how to communicate - you need to establish a connection between the devices. For this, you need the ip address of the server. The simplest thing to do would be to show the ip address on the server UI and then manually enter it on the clients and press connect. It would then establish a connection to the server on a known port and you can send messages between client and server."
for manual connection follow the steps
take settings/wireless&networks/portable wi-fi hotspot settings from any one of the phone
create new hotspot and turn on wi-fi portable hotspot from there
connect all other device to that hotspot including your pc
you will get ip of each device programmically (includig pc,but i dont know)

is it ok to connect 2 devices concurrently to connect Bluetooth in Android?

Iam connecting 3G phone for my Android device for internet connection and another Socket(SPP) for CAN signal receiving.Whenever I manually connect to the Bluetooth tethering via 3G phone, i can browse internet perfectly and speed is good.Whenever programmatically connect to the 3G connection, i couldn't browse internet.i checked in shell and observing that in my mobile 'device is connected' message displayed and E symbol appears.No problem for me to connect Socket.But I got problem to use 3G phone.For this iam using APN/DUN mode.I checked both but no use.Is there any performance issue here or anything wrong to connect different devices by using Bluetooth API in android.Why this happends while connecting Mobile programmatically.Please give me guidance.
Regards,
Rajendar

Yes, you can have several open connections at a time.
In fact, I've used my hands-free bluetooth on my phone, as it is connected to my ELM327 SPP device streaming at full speed. I didn't notice any hiccups.
As for losing connectivity when you are connected to multiple devices, it's most likely an issue with the DUN provider you're using.
Also it's worth stating that, on Verizon/3g phones, when you use the phone as a phone, it suspends all 3g data services until the call is terminated.

The way L2CAP defines the LT_ADDR allows connecting devices up to 7. Your connection problems is something else.

Android - modes of connectivity, device identification and device inter-communication?

Can someone explain a couple of very simple concepts to me - I'm interested in mobile devices running android and how they are identified over networks. Some scenarios:
Device is connected over WiFi - presumably the device has a standard IP address as with any host and can communicate with any other android host over TCP/IP (assuming it knows the participating device's IP?
Device is connected over bluetooth - how are devices identified in this case?
Device is connected over mobile operator's network - this is the one I'm interested in and confused by - is there anyway for two or more devices to discover each other and communicate via the mobile operator's network? How does a device communicate with a backend server in this scenario? In other words, how do apps and devices communicate when not connected to a WiFi network?
Thanks for any advice..

I'm only sure about the bluetooth thing, so i only answer this part:
The Bluetooth interface on your device has an MAC adresse. So while communicationg over Bluetooth you can assume that this MAC adresse is a unique identifier for a specific device. You can also reach other devices by establishing a connection over this MAC adress- However, to get this mac adress in the first place, you have to know it from somwhere, or you have to search for other bluetooth devices in the reachabla area before.

WiFi and 3g both attach the [mobile] device to the internet so it can make internet connections. 3G assigns a publicly addressable IP to the device, so one could, presumably open a server socket and listen for connections. The client would have to know the mobile IP, which may change quite frequently.
Bluetooth is more geared toward close-proximity. Devices in the vicinity can be connected to, after you have paired with them, which requires the cooperation of both devices which are to communicate.
If the goal is to produce an application which connects to nearby devices, I can think of the following ideas:
3g: all devices running the client register their position with a central database server. If the server detects that two clients are in close proximity, let them know so they can connect through the internet or through the server
WiFi: you could use the same idea as 3g, or use broadcast/multicast packets to broadcast your presence. Other apps can listen for those broadcasts and discover which other devices are near.
Bluetooth: A little trickier, as a device must be placed into discoverable mode in order for others to "see it". Discoverable mode is a temporary state and only lasts about 30 seconds (at a time).