Coding help for Bluetooth Bracelet hack
 

Hello folks,
As those that have been hanging out on #maemo may know, I recently picked up a Bluetooth-enabled bracelet, complete with LCD, button, and vibe motor. It's intended for callerID, but I am hoping to repurpose it to display other alerts, such as, say "new e-mail from Joe", etc. I am in the middle of the crazy time known as exam season, so this isn't a huge rush, but I'm looking for some coders that would be interested in helping with this if I can get it working. I have some coding experience, and I can handle the hack itself, but I don't know GTK/Hildon/Maemo enough to dive right in and write "real" code to interface with the device. I'm not asking anyone to commit to anything, or devote appreciable amounts of time into this, but I just thought I'd post a note in case anyone might be interested.
The bracelet is $40 Canadian (free shipping) from DealExtreme, and details, as they come, can be found at the blog link in my sig. (Oh, and yes, the pictures on the blog stink - I'm going to borrow a better camera and redo them).

Re: Coding help for Bluetooth Bracelet hack
 

Update: This post is in response to a post which was removed, discussing the screen-less version of the bracelet mentioned.

That model is the lower-end one. As you can see, it doesn't have an LCD, which makes the hack not much fun, but also would make it less work. I carry my N810 in a belt case that exposes the LED, so that model isn't much of an improvement over what I have. That said, I could see it being useful for other people, and as you originally said, it looks nicer. If/Once I get this working, it shouldn't be too much of a stretch to get that one working, I would think. I don't have one, but if someone wants to buy me one, I'd be happy to take a look at it. :P (I'm half kidding, but if anyone wants to take me seriously, just PM me)
Oh, and by the way, don't buy it from TG. I like their stuff, but they charge a fortune. DealExtreme is less reputable, to be sure, but they sell the same products in this case, and I haven't had any issues with them except slow shipping (and hey, the shipping's free, so you can't complain)

Re: Coding help for Bluetooth Bracelet hack
 

I bought a Sony Ericsson Bluetooth watch for quite similar purposes, but haven't had time to start coding for it yet. Things get a little easier in May, so I hope to really start the project then. This is my first Maemo project so at this point I have more questions than answers anyway.

Re: Coding help for Bluetooth Bracelet hack
 

i dont think there is a need for two bluetooth radios, as bluetooth can handle multiple connections (i have used my phone as a dap with a2dp at the same time as a modem for my N800. pan is better then dun tho, less impact on the a2dp stream).

a bigger potential problem would be if the phone allows multiple handsfree connections at the same time (bracelet and earpiece for example).

Re: Coding help for Bluetooth Bracelet hack
 

I'm not sure if you saw this already but perhaps you could use this Diablo Training Manual...

Re: Coding help for Bluetooth Bracelet hack
 

This sounds like an interesting project. Can you pair with it already? What kind of device does it show as in the Bluetooth dialogue?

And it is cool that there's another tablet hacker in the Lower Mainland :)

Re: Coding help for Bluetooth Bracelet hack
 

I got it working - yay! See http://ffejery.wordpress.com/2009/12...bled-bracelet/ for details.
Yeah, although I know a couple of other people at my university (The Other University, that is) who have N810s, and one other person with an N900 as well.

Re: Coding help for Bluetooth Bracelet hack
 

jaem, that looks pretty awesome! Any idea on what it would take to get that API or at least the test module compiled for a Maemo device? I'm not very familiar with BlueZ... but my ideas when I saw this a while ago were 1) display text/sms messages on it or 2) more simply, have a way of tieing it into alarms or something?...

Re: Coding help for Bluetooth Bracelet hack
 

Yay! I hit the front page of Hack a Day!

If you look at the readme, it explains in rough terms. If you have scratchbox set up, it's a matter of downloading the source package, changing one word in a file, and rebuilding it. However, I will be providing packages soon - it was 3am when I got this done, so I didn't bother right then. :P In the mean time, if you know how, just change the backend to "dummy" in the package's rules file.
As for displaying actual alerts on it, that's my next step. Be aware, though, that this is a non-standard hack, and is not something that Nokia is going to distribute. If any third-party application developers want to add a hidden feature to use this for those that want to, that would be cool.

Update: Rebuilt BlueZ packages are at the Files link on the blog post linked to from here. If you have an N900 and the bracelet, please try it out and let me know how it works :)

Re: Coding help for Bluetooth Bracelet hack
 

Congrats, jaem!

Now if only you can keep the BT stack intact for other devices...

a fellow hack-a-day winner ;)

Re: Coding help for Bluetooth Bracelet hack
 

Well, it certainly should be possible, but the code in question is all written with GLib, which I don't know how to use, and frankly don't want to. If someone else is up to it, I'd gladly point them in the right direction. Just poke me here, or PM me.