BLE Connection problems + questions

Hi,

I have a problem that when connecting two Pucks together using BLE, there seems to be some sort of timeout going on which I did not program. I am using 1v91.

I have a central and a peripheral Puck. Here is the code for the peripheral, which is pretty vanilla:

var g_value = 0;

function onInit() {
  NRF.setServices({
    "A4AF09E7-5BC2-46F6-BA08-DA8E0982D84D" :
    {
      0x2A6E:
      {
        readable: true,
        writable: true,
        notify: true,
        value : g_value,
        onWrite : function(evt)
        {
          digitalPulse(LED2, true, 10);
          g_value = evt.data[0];
        }
    }}});
}

Here is the code for the central:

var g_gatt = false;
var g_characteristic = false;
var g_counter = 0;

function connect(nextStep) {
    console.log("Requesting device");
    NRF.requestDevice({
        filters: [{
            name: 'Puck.js 2061'
        }]
    }).then(function(device) {
        console.log("Connecting to GATT");
        return device.gatt.connect();
    }).then(function(gatt) {
        console.log("Connecting to service");
        g_gatt = gatt;
        return g_gatt.getPrimaryService("A4AF09E7-5BC2-46F6-BA08-DA8E0982D84D");
    }).then(function(service) {
        console.log("Getting characteristic");
        return service.getCharacteristic("0x2A6E");
    }).then(function(characteristic) {
        console.log("Calling next step");
        g_characteristic = characteristic;
        nextStep();
    }).catch(function() {
        console.log("Error connecting");
    });
}

function write(value) {
    if (!g_characteristic)
        connect(function() {
            write(value);
        });
    else
    {
        console.log("Writing ", value);
        g_characteristic.writeValue(value).catch(function() {
            g_characteristic = false;
            write(value);
        });
    }
}

function onInit() {
    setWatch(function() {
        write(g_counter++);
    }, BTN, {
        edge: "rising",
        debounce: 50,
        repeat: true
    });
}

Again, nothing special. So when I first press the button on the central, it will connect to the peripheral and write the value. The peripheral will shortly blink green. Connecting of course takes a while, but subsequent writes will be fast. So far so good.

The problem is that after letting the Pucks rest for a while, the write will fail. Then the catch will come into play and reconnect. So there seems to be some kind of inactivity timeout somewhere. I did not find any documentation for that or any hint how I can avoid that. Any ideas?

The question is if there is a better way to send integers (preferably not just 8 bits) than sending them as a character and reconverting to an integer? Also, the way I handle the !g_characteristic case feels pretty clumsy. Any better idea on how to handle that? Generally, any hint on how to program the central more elegant is welcome.

Thanks!