Simultaneous Bluetooth connections possible?
 

It appears to me the 770 is only capable of one bluetooth connection at a time. I've got a BT phone, keyboard, and GPS. So far I cannot seem to make more than one be connected at a time.

This is kind of disappointing. Am I just doing something wrong? Is this a limitation of the OS or the hardware? Hopefully this will be fixed in the 2006 release if possible.

David

Having multiple bluetooth connections is definitely possible, but you have to make sure that each connection is using a different rfcomm "port" (/dev/rfcomm0, /dev/rfcomm1, etc., if you're using rfcomm).

Check out the Bluetooth Plugin application (listed in the maemo.org Application Catalog). This should help you administer your multiple bluetooth devices.

Aha! Thanks for the tip. It was your excellent Maemo mapper that was leading me to investigate this.

Hmm, it appears I was wrong...
Keyboard + phone works fine.

Now I need to escape the office and try manually tweaking the channel in your mapper.

Thank you...
David

Maemo Mapper does not use a Nokia-770-side "channel" like rfcomm - it communicates directly with the GPS device, which effectively isolates it from rfcomm-related bluetooth communication. rfcomm uses "channels" on the Nokia-770-side only in the sense of creating a file system device (which must have a unique name, hence an arbitrary "channel" like /dev/rfcomm0 or /dev/rfcomm1).

The "Channel Number" in Maemo Mapper's config refers to the channel listened to by the GPS receiver (similar to a TCP port number), which should almost always be 1. I don't know what maleffects this might have on other devices (like keyboards) that are listening on channel 1. If you want, you can try changing the channel number used by your GPS receiver or keyboard (I don't know how to do this - it's probably device-dependent) .

Are you confident that your Bluetooth implementation on Maemo Mapper is compatible with simultaneous use of other bluetooth devices?

This morning in my brief fooling around with it, I could not use my phone to download new maps on the file if my GPS was active. Could be operator error, I'll fool with it tonight.

David

Yes. I've used my keyboard simultaneously with Maemo Mapper, and others have reported using their cell phones simultaneously with Maemo Mapper, so I know it's possible. I'm just not sure exactly what configuration might be necessary (across all concerned devices) in order for it to work.

Has worked fine for me - assuming I connect the gps _first_, then connect the phone.

Brad.