Login at Kodi Home

**mobious** · 2010-12-07, 16:16

Just wondering, something like this maybe?

http://www.amazon.com/IOGear-Bluetooth-M...f=pd_cp__3

topfs2 · (This post was last modified: 2010-12-07, 16:28 by topfs2.)

XBMC as an app doesn't care which bluetooth dongle you get. So its up to the OS underneath if it supports it or not. I guess your planning on running XBMC Live though (always a good choice). Generally linux (which is what we have underneath) runs quite many dongles (just 3.0 ones atm which are iffy afaik) and some customers in that amazon review said ubuntu works (which is what we base xbmc live on) so it will most likely work.

Although if you run XBMC Live we don't really have any configuration tools for bluetooth, something that might change if more remotes starts using bluetooth. I'm sure there are guides doing it from commandline either here or over at ubuntu though. Hope you get it working Smile

Cheers,
Tobias

**mobious** · 2010-12-07, 18:11

Thank you topfs, yes I forgot to mention I am running the latest Dharma build of Live. That clears up what I needed to know, appreciate it!

topfs2 · 2010-12-07, 18:32

Bluetooth is a tech we (or atleast I am) watching quite much. It has some great potential to be really useful for XBMC but currently it is really lacking hardware wise, which is sad. Remotes could be so good for it but considering there is no real standardized way to power on over bluetooth it might not really happen. Streaming over bt is also interesting but same there, not really there hw wise.

All in all, when hardware pops up it its much more likely to add configurations and I have already looked somewhat at how to do it but it doesn't make sense adding configs without useful hardware (mostly since its hard to gear configuration for simplicity without knowing what hardware people will use most.).

Anyway, sorry for me rambling but I just find it so sad that such a tech is hard to use with HTPC's atm.

Cheers,
Tobias

**mobious** · 2010-12-07, 18:41

Well the main reason I asked about it is because I currently have a Rii Wireless Mini Keyboard that uses RF, and I have 2 XBMC nettops in my house. So, I was thinking about getting the bluetooth one and see how well that does on my other system. You make tons of valid points about bluetooth but as you said its not really in favor with remotes due to the lack of powering on over bluetooth.

jhsrennie · 2010-12-07, 18:47

I use a bluetooth keyboard with XBMC on Windows XP, but that's on a (bootcamped) Mac Mini so the Bluetooth is built in. On Live I imagine there would be considerable messing around with drivers to get the dongle to work. Actually even on Windows I've seen lots of complaints about drivers for the cheap end of the Bluetooth dongle market.

JR

topfs2 · 2010-12-07, 18:57

jhsrennie Wrote:I use a bluetooth keyboard with XBMC on Windows XP, but that's on a (bootcamped) Mac Mini so the Bluetooth is built in. On Live I imagine there would be considerable messing around with drivers to get the dongle to work. Actually even on Windows I've seen lots of complaints about drivers for the cheap end of the Bluetooth dongle market.

JR

Actually those chips supported in kernel are usually running much better than on windows. But it for sure depends on there being drivers available, which some chips aren't (especially the new atheros 3.0 which I tried)

teefer22 · 2010-12-09, 18:38

I was actually going to post a new message about bluetooth dongles so I'll add on to this one. I installed xbmc live onto a usb stick and am booting from it on an older P4 computer. Everything was working quite well, I was able to stream 720p x264 over my wireless network with my usb 802.11g dongle.

Then I wanted a remote and read something about someone using a wii remote. So I dug out an old USB bluetooth dongle I have had for years, plugged it in and used this post to install the wii mote packages:
http://forum.xbmc.org/showthread.php?tid=39171

and this post for getting bluetooth working:
http://forum.xbmc.org/showthread.php?tid=55102

and boom, it detected the wii remote and it worked perfectly.. Until I shut down the PC, when I powered it on the next time, it wouldn't connect and the led on the bluetooth dongle wasn't lit. So I fooled around for a bit and discovered that if I power on the PC, and unplug and replug the bluetooth dongle while waiting for the 8 seconds at the grub screen. It works every time. No commands, no keyboard even needs to be plugged in.

So... is it just a flaky bluetooth dongle, or is it a bug, or a config issue? I'll gladly buy another bluetooth dongle if the problem is likely my old dongle is flaky. The dongle is probably over 3 years old and has no markings other than it just says "bluetooth" on it. Smile

Thanks for any advice,
Trent.

topfs2 · 2010-12-09, 19:41

teefer22 Wrote:So... is it just a flaky bluetooth dongle, or is it a bug, or a config issue? I'll gladly buy another bluetooth dongle if the problem is likely my old dongle is flaky. The dongle is probably over 3 years old and has no markings other than it just says "bluetooth" on it.

Thanks for any advice,
Trent.

Hard to tell, I know on my old intel DG45FC I had that problem with the MCE Remote, in my case it seemed to be that it for some reason did not detect the USB having something in it unless I replugged it. And as with you the problem could have been either that the dongle didn't start properly (as it probably never detected the computer being started as the motherboard may have feed it same voltage no matter etc..) or it could have been the actual motherboard not detecting the dongle. For me it was the motherboard as it works perfect on my ION. So if you could a friends dongle or try the dongle on another computer it may show you which it is for you.

I doubt its software related though.

Could be the dongle also