BlueZ and Blueman to replace poor Pre bluetooth support?

[mikus]

I was looking at an article from webos-internals.org wiki, and someone made mention of replacing palms apparently bad bluetooth support with something more standard from a normal Linux stack. Being a linux desktop user full-time, and seeing what the Pre is missing out on, I think this would be about the best thing that could happen to the device at the moment.

I really think this would be a big improvement if it can be done, especially integrating something like Blueman, the BT profile management applet with it. Not only do they both support just about any basic bluetooth functionality you could imagine, they work well to boot, as I use it most every day. The Pre already uses pulseaudio from linux, which has hooks for bluez and blueman audio support, both handset and A2DP stereo. Another stupidly missing features keyboard HID profiles and obex. Come on, why not just go with linux defaults that work already and are about 800% more functional than Palm's?

I'd like to see some rallying around for the cause, as I don't understand why Palm would purposely cut off their bluetooth support at the knees, likening it to some crappy apple product when linux BT support is already fully functional as-is in Linux. There are even binary armel (kernel architecture) ports for blueman and bluez through debian, ubuntu, and countless other distros! It shouldn't take extravagant hacking to get them running in the pre...

If palm won't get with the picture, the community should with or without them. I'd happy donate to see this happen, and from all the discontent postings in this forum about its current BT support, it sounds like others would too.

[erk48188]

i'll happily donate as well. no OBEX is just stupid.

[mikus]

Well, I'm waiting for mine to get here still, but this is likely the first thing I plan on looking into. They're going to verizon so I need to work that out, but I would really like to be able to use pan and hid profiles with it if at all possible. The other thing is if I'm reading things correct, BT is a bit shaky in general, and this will annoy me quite fast. I loves me some bluetooth gadgets and have an array of them I'm chomping at the bit to try.

[migs]

i agree bluetooth HID profiles is a must on any smartphone

[jrkillel]

I'd happily donate if it would enable DUN...can't use traffic on my TomTom without it.

[Jonathan I Ezor]

I'm 10000% behind this! {ProfJonathan}

[sparkkticus]

I read Palm did that because Sprint didn't want people teathering... oh well

I'd much rather Palm implements this in their next update instead of leaving it to the scene, WWAAYY too much patching!

[AmHack]

I'm so disappointed in the bluetooth support. My old WinMobile could play music in a mono headset & my Ericsson HBH-DS220. What was nice was I could leave that plugged into the aux in the car stereo, and wirelessly beam my music to the car stereo...It was heaven!!! Had I known I was going to have to give that up, I might not have.

Come on Palm...Make it so!

I would donate to this cause as well.

[wess580]

show me where 2 go im ready 2 leave donations

[superduperpre]

Originally Posted by erk48188

i'll happily donate as well. no OBEX is just stupid.

So, yep. This is horrible.

Its a basic functionality that should have been included. Unfortunately my Pre is starting to appear to me as eye candy.

Lots of swishy gesturey dealios and not much substance. A well integrated OS that doesnt actually do anything. PDFs, word docs, file transfers via OBEX Bluetooth, etc.

I just recieved a Dell Mini9 that I was so excited to be able to use in conjunction with the Pre. But no go.

Its ridiculous... for me it makes the Pre less usable for my business, and for no good reason than a gross oversight. But ts SUCH an oversight that it makes me think it wasn't an oversight.

I called in and started a service request, and then while on hold for several minutes at several times I found out from the forums here and at Palm.com that OBEX isn't supported. The Tech Rep stated that the Pre will not currently talk to any computer via bluetooth... only "audio devices".

(this jibes with what the Pre shows on its screen: "trying to connect to audio devices")

What a joke. "audio devices" = eye candy and nothing more. My Pre is looking more and more like shiny little toy.

Sorry to sound so bitter: I really really want to like the Pre. I really do. But I need a device that can act like a smart phone not just swoosh around on a touch screen and go to Yelp and Facebook.

I know someone will wander along and try to spit the usual apologists routine at me- thinking that business and research can wait a year for Palm to get its act in gear. Sorry folks, thats not the real world.

So... when's that HTC Hero coming again?

[mikebeam]

I agree I just got my new Dell laptop with bluetooth. I just wasted my money getting this feature put on my laptop because it will not talk with my pre!!

[Leeladisky]

Originally Posted by sparkkticus

I read Palm did that because Sprint didn't want people teathering... oh well

I'd much rather Palm implements this in their next update instead of leaving it to the scene, WWAAYY too much patching!

I'm sorry, and no offense to Sparkkticus on this, but if that is Palm's reason, they are horrible negotiators... LOL. Sprint has countless phones where, for $10-$20/month, you can enable tethering. I have a company required BB (which I hate) on my plan that has tethering enabled (and, over BT, I might add). The fact that BT has multiple profiles means that, if that were the reason, they could prevent tethering and still give people the ability to, at least, sync music/media/files over BT. Seriously, I don't think it's a REAL reason, although it may be the one they are telling us...

I fully support this effort - BT needs to be improved!!!

Lee

[phlegm]

Originally Posted by sparkkticus

I read Palm did that because Sprint didn't want people teathering... oh well

I'm confused about this. For Canadian Pres on Bell, tethering via bluetooth is enabled by default.

So, the existing BT stack is clearly capable of some of these features if they "want" it to be.

However, US and Canadian Pres seem to share the same spotty interaction with car kits. (Hope 1.2 offers a fix here.)

[Jason Robitaille]

Originally Posted by phlegm

I'm confused about this. For Canadian Pres on Bell, tethering via bluetooth is enabled by default.

So, the existing BT stack is clearly capable of some of these features if they "want" it to be.

However, US and Canadian Pres seem to share the same spotty interaction with car kits. (Hope 1.2 offers a fix here.)

Bluetooth tethering is ready, but beyond that and audio headset support, bluetooth is pretty limited. No OBEX or HID support are huge limitations of the current implementation

[jbg7474]

Originally Posted by Jason Robitaille

Bluetooth tethering is ready, but beyond that and audio headset support, bluetooth is pretty limited. No OBEX or HID support are huge limitations of the current implementation

Should note that BT PAN profile IS supported, and although you get a notice on the Sprint Palm Pre that sharing the internet connection is not authorized, the connection between the computer and the Pre is still there. If you install SSH and SFTP, you can use this connection to transfer files, but this still requires linux access right now.

Oh, and My Tether can use this connection to share internet access, which again requires linux access to install.

[diomark]

The paid (err.. donation) version of my tether does NOT require linux access, and can be installed using a windows based installer.
-m