Which IOIO supported Bluetooth dongle has a wide range?

[FelixG]

Hello

The very cheap bluetooth dongle from dealextreme has arrieved me this weekend. But with my Nexus S I only get connection within some meters (~3-5m). Because of this I want to ask you for your experiences. Which IOIO supported bluetooth dongle has a wide or the widest range? My aim is to get a connection in a normal house from everywhere (~20-30m through walls). Or in other words, the smartphone should be the limiting factor for the range and not the bluetooth adapter.

I searched in the internet and found some products with external antennas:

http://www.trenz-electronic.de/products/communications/usb-bluetooth-adapter.html

http://www.miniinthebox.com/usb-bluetooth-adapter-with-antenna-class-1_p245161.html

http://www.newark.com/lm-technologies/lm541/adapter-bluetooth-usb-class-1/dp/64T3349?Ntt=LM+TECHNOLOGIES+-+LM541

http://www.newark.com/jsp/search/productdetail.jsp?SKU=04R7580

Especially the last two ones from LM Technologies seems to have a wide range from the datasheet of LM. But the price is quite high.

But the problem is always the same. Are the information which are written in the online shop correct.... I don't need a dongle which gives me 1000m connectivity. 20-30m trough walls would be enough.

Here are two fotos.

The first is from the Bluetooth dongle which is linked in the wiki (the one with the external antenna). The antenna is a fake.

The second one is the very cheap dongle from the wiki. I attached a WIFI antenna. The range doubles (10m through walls), but I think it is not a class 1 dongle.

Thank you for your experiences.

Cheers

Felix

[FelixG]

Hello

I found a test of bluetooth devices test in a computer magazine. I translated it into English. I hope it helps.

Place 1: It looks great. I ordered it.

Place 5: the device looks like the very cheap one of dealextreme.com

Place 7: I tested it. It is not working with the IOIO board.

Cheers

Felix

[FelixG]

Hello

I bought this wonderful looking "Gembird BTD-Mini 2" dongle. Amazon link

But it is not supported of the IOIO board (not displayed on the phone). I want to ask, where the USB BT driver is implemented and where I can check, why the dongle is not supported. Do you think that it is possible to modify the BT driver for this dongel. Any idea how?

Thanks for all answers.

Felix

[Ytai Ben-Tsvi]

The first thing to check is whether the dongle presents itself as a USB hub. Some dongles do that, and when they do they are not supported. You can check that by connecting the dongle to a PC and dumping the USB descriptors.

The code for the USB driver is under firmware/libusb and the bluetooth stack is under firmware/libbtstack.

If you have any questions on building the firmware, please join the ioio-dev list and dig there before opening a new thread.

Ytai

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[FelixG]

Dear Ytai

Very good help with the USB hub.

I connected the Gembird Bluetooth adapter.

Windows7 device manager (only information of the first page):

Device typ: Bluetooth USB

Manifacturer: IVT Corporation

Location: Port_#0001.Hub_#0002

BlueSoleil:

Manifacturer: Cambridge Silion Radio

HCI-version: unknown

HCI-revison: 149C

LMP-revision: unknown

LMP-subversion: 149C

Only for comparison the cheep dealextram adapter for $1,80

Windows7 device manager (only information of the first page):

Device typ: Bluetooth USB

Manifacturer: IVT Corporation

Location: Port_#0001.Hub_#0002

BlueSoleil:

Manifacturer: Cambridge Silion Radio

HCI-version: 2.0

HCI-revison: 44

LMP-revision: 2.0

LMP-subversion: 3

It seems that both deviced presents itself as a USB hub? Which information from the windows device manager or Linux libusb would be useful to identify what's the problem?

Cheers

Felix

Am Donnerstag, 21. Juni 2012 03:22:58 UTC+2 schrieb Ytai:

The first thing to check is whether the dongle presents itself as a USB hub. Some dongles do that, and when they do they are not supported. You can check that by connecting the dongle to a PC and dumping the USB descriptors.

The code for the USB driver is under firmware/libusb and the bluetooth stack is under firmware/libbtstack.

If you have any questions on building the firmware, please join the ioio-dev list and dig there before opening a new thread.

Ytai

To unsubscribe from this group, send email to ioio-users+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com.

[FelixG]

Hello 

I opend this nice BT dongle of Gembird to see the hardware. Here are two pictures:

Additionally, I copied all information from the device page of windows. Here is the list. It looks really similar to the $1.80 dongle from dealextreme. Are these information useful to know, why the dongle is not supported by IOIO? Does anyone know, how the driver should be modified? I think this would be a quite nice device for the community....

device destribtion: CSR Bluetooth Device

hardware IDs: USB\VID_0A12&PID_0001&REV_5276

        USB\VID_0A12&PID_0001

compatibe IDs: USB\Class_E0&SubClass_01&Prot_01

        USB\Class_E0&SubClass_01

        USB\Class_E0

service:         Btcsrusb

device class: Bluetooth

device class GUID: {f12d3cf8-b11d-457e-8641-be2af2d6d204}

driver key: {f12d3cf8-b11d-457e-8641-be2af2d6d204}\0000

config flag: 00000000

manifacturer: IVT Corporation

local information: Port_#0001.Hub_#0002

object name of physical device: \Device\USBPDO-7

features:        00000084

       CM_DEVCAP_REMOVABLE

       CM_DEVCAP_SURPRISEREMOVALOK

bustype GUID: {9d7debbc-c85d-11d1-9eb4-006008c3a19a}

legacybustyp: 0000000F

bus number: 00000000

enumerator: USB

address:         00000001

power data: current power status:

        D0

        power capacity:

        0000005D

        PDCAP_D0_SUPPORTED

        PDCAP_D2_SUPPORTED

        PDCAP_D3_SUPPORTED

        PDCAP_WAKE_FROM_D0_SUPPORTED

        PDCAP_WAKE_FROM_D2_SUPPORTED

        power status matching:

        S0 -> D0

        S1 -> D2

        S2 -> D2

        S3 -> D2

        S4 -> D2

        S5 -> D3

guidline distance: 00000003

default value for guideline distance: 00000003

installation status: 00000000

root path:         PCIROOT(0)#PCI(1A01)#USBROOT(0)#USB(1)

basiscontainer ID: {f98bc69d-bbc5-11e1-a1e8-001c26e889c4}

displayed name: CSR Bluetooth Device

device instance path: USB\VID_0A12&PID_0001\5&1EE2AC2A&0&1

DevNode status: 0180600A

        DN_DRIVER_LOADED

        DN_STARTED

        DN_DISABLEABLE

        DN_REMOVABLE

        DN_NT_ENUMERATOR

        DN_NT_DRIVER

problem code: 00000000

superior:         USB\ROOT_HUB\4&2cfc940c&0

container ID: {f98bc69d-bbc5-11e1-a1e8-001c26e889c4}

safe disconnect necessary: <false>

device destribtion from bus: Bluetooth2.1+EDR CLASS1

hard name of driver knot: oem17.inf:IVT.NTamd64:Btusb_DDI:6.0.15.63:usb\vid_0a12&pid_0001

installtion date:            21.06.2012 20:05:27

date of first installation: 21.06.2012 20:05:27

driver assembly date:    24.06.2007 02:00:00

driver assembly version:6.0.15.63

driver assembly destcripton: CSR Bluetooth Device

inf name:            oem17.inf

inf block:            Btusb_DDI

matching device ID:    usb\vid_0a12&pid_0001

provider:            IVT Corporation

rank of insalled driver:   00FF0001

long class name:    Bluetooth USB

short class name:    Bluetooth

class standard symbol: 100

class installer:            btinstall.dll,BTUSBInstaller

no install class:            <true>

class for auto install:    <true>

class symbol path:   C:\Windows\system32\btinstall.dll,-100

display name:   Bluetooth USB

[Ytai Ben-Tsvi]

Felix,

I cannot do a lot with this information. The only valuable data point I could notice is that your dongle does not appear to be acting as a hub.

If, for some reason, it is really important for you to get this specific dongle working, try to build your own firmware with debug output and find out what is going on. If you have any question on that, please join the ioio-dev list and read a little there before asking.

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[Scot Wilcoxon]

On Sunday, June 10, 2012 4:25:34 PM UTC-5, FelixG wrote:

My aim is to get a connection in a normal house from everywhere (~20-30m through walls).

Bluetooth's maximum range is usually 10m, and that's what I've seen with many devices. A dipole antenna would be 2.5 inches long, but you'd probably have to add it to the transmitter and receiver -- does your phone have a 2.5 inch Bluetooth antenna?

And you can't trust a Bluetooth dongle which seems to have an antenna: http://scanlime.org/2010/04/failed-antenna-design-101/

[FelixG]

Hello

I created a page in the wiki with all bluetooth adapters I tested in the last view month:

https://github.com/ytai/ioio/wiki/Supported-Bluetooth-Dongles

I would be happy if everybody will add his dongle to this list (if it is not already posted).

Cheers

Felix