Picochess 4.2.1 with Wi-Fi and Bluetooth menus are out for testing

[Johan Sjöblom]

Hi brave testers.

Trying to make installation easier, but this one requires more testing. I have tested the basic flows myself, but feedback is more than welcome.

If you want to test the 4.2.1 its now in this branch: 256-bluetooth-pairing

And here is the PR location with some explanations: https://github.com/JohanSjoblom/picochess/pull/258

You can now connect to a Wi-Fi when setting up a new Pi. If you want to be able to use quick-connect add your Mobile phone wifi hotspot info to your picochess.ini. You don't have to, you can also enter it in the settings page. Or you can enter any SSID and pass for any WiFi you have.

New optional picochess.ini settings:

hotspot-ssid = YourPhoneHotspotName
hotspot-pass = YourHotspotPassword

There is also an experimental Bluetooth pairing + PAN. In theory you could use your Raspberry Pi without any Wi-Fi network (PAN=Personal Area Network). You can pair your phone by chosing from the new Bluetooth menu, or from the setting page. Then you will see some instructions on the clock display. Put your phone to search for bluetooth devices, pair, and then enable Bluetooth tethering. Failing to setup a PAN, it will tell you to use WiFi hotspot. I could not yet get this flow to work on my Samsung Android phones... But some phones might work? Or someone might now how to fix the new scripts? Anyway, this Bluetooth part is very experimental. It does pair my phone, but my phone does not accept the PAN.

I have put all info in readme as best as I can. I have also updated all the picochess.ini.example.* files where you can see all the new settings for Wi-Fi and Bluetooth.

Main thing is that there is now a clock menu System -> Bluetooth. You can run the Fix_bluetooth script or pair your phone. On the new Wi-Fi menu you can connect to your mobile phone Wi-Fi hotspot.

-- Johan

[Johan Sjöblom]

Hi all.

After testing myself I realized that its difficult to test installation support features in a branch. I have now merged the 256-bluetooth-pairing branch. It means you will get this version 4.2.1 next time you do a normal upgrade.

For brave testers who want to test this, please report clean installation or upgrade problems. We now have a Wi-Fi and Bluetooth clock menu, and the same alternatives on the settings web page (from the cog wheel under the menu tab). You can now run Fix_bluetooth script from the menu, and you can connect to your Mobile Wi-Fi hotspot from the menu, or any Wi-Fi from the settings page. Hopefully this will make it easier as the new Pi Imager no longer allows you to pre-define a Wi-Fi. And yes, you can use an old version of the Pi Imager for a while.

All installations and setups are a little bit different, so setting up Wi-Fi and Bluetooth are never going to be fully automated, but lets see if things get a little bit easier now... If not, ideas are most welcome!

For headless installations: use ssh to run the new pair-phone script:

sudo ./pair-phone

If anyone knows why Mobile phones don't accept a PAN (Bluetooth personal area network with Bluetooth tethering) please check that pair-phone script. It does pair the mobile phone, and then it starts a PAN service after which Mobile Phone Bluetooth tethering should work, but my phones immediately reject it. I dont know why. My vision was to be able to use a Pi without Wi-Fi with Bluetooth only. And I was hoping to be able to install a headless Pi without any display or keyboard and to first get it into Bluetooth pairing with tethering and then from the Wi-Fi settings page connect it to your Wi-Fi. All in one flow, and no display needed, only ssh in and run sudo ./pair-phone. Unfortunately I did not get that part to work for me. The fallback to Wi-Fi hotspot does work. When the Wi-Fi hotspot connects, it will show the IP address on the clock display so that you know how to connect with your phone.

-- Johan