Bluetooth and Serval

[Paul Johnson]

While Bluetooth Mesh is a thing, I'm kind of thinking that it might be time to rethink the usefulness of Bluetooth as a WAN for the sake of mesh networking in general.

Essentially, why is this on by default and next to impossible to turn off?  We've tested this at an outdoor furry convention on a very limited basis to test the possibilities, and one problem that was immediately apparent is the inability (or at least extreme difficulty) in using devices like headphones or headsets, or peer to peer file transfers, over Bluetooth with Serval running.

Really seems like Bluetooth should be an opt-in mode, particularly for promiscious meshing, rather than an always-on feature, particularly now that we're on the "wifi AP" model for wifi compatibility, de-emphasizing the mesh aspect on the client side.  As well as that even casual users now use bluetooth Airpods by default with their device for normal conversation.

At this point the way Bluetooth is handled as an always-on service when Bluetooth is enabled is at best really, really cumbersome for those intimately familiar with their hardware and how Serval works, tending towards a legitimate showstopper for casual users.

[Paul Gardner-Stephen]

Hello,

For all these and more reasons, we are not doing the bluetooth stuff the same way in the new version of the app we are working on. Checkout developer.servalproject.org/files/chat/alpha for the latest pre-releases.

Paul.

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[Jeremy Lakeman]

Bluetooth device scanning is quite disruptive and time consuming.

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[Georges Duprez]

I have to say that at least bluetooth sharing of the apk works with the last alpha of serval chat, while it didn't with the 0.93 of serval mesh. (likely due to varying android versions between the two phones). But I wonder: are you working separately on Serval chat and the serval mesh app ? Or is serval chat bound to be merged in the main app somehow ? Because what I see is that alpha build of serval chat is reliable and very well made, but offers way less possibilies than the serval mesh app. Have a great day.