Palm and Pocket PCs with bluetooth cards

[fadenoid]

Has anyone had any experience of using LabVIEW 7.1 PDA with Pocket PCs or Palms fitted with a bluetooth card?

Most Palms I've come across e.g. the Tungsten series are bluetooth enabled internally, so is it a case that LabVIEW can only see the internal BT device when the native BT vis in LabVIEW are being used to create apps?

Similarly, I've used the same BT VIs for Pocket PC 2003 devices with BT hardware already inside (specifically Ipaq H2210,which ran faultlessly) but I am unsure whether a Pocket PC running 2003 with say a CF card can be utilised using those same BT comms VIs (same goes for a Palm with OS5 and a Bluetooth SD card)?

Cheers

[JR_A.]

LabVIEW PDA Bluetooth functionality is supported for both built-in and plug-in bluetooth adapters. For Pocket PC, those have to be using the WIDCOMM 1.4 or later driver. All of the built-in devices that I've seen have been using that, but there are some SD and CF cards for Pocket PC that do not.

Palm OS only has one driver and hence LabVIEW PDA's bluetooth will work with any bluetooth enabled Palm OS device. A note though, is the the Palm Bluetooth SD card is not supported on Palm OS 5 devices.

In both cases, LabVIEW doesn't care or even know whether the Bluetooth device is built in or external. The Bluetooth device is recognized by the driver and LabVIEW talks to the driver API.

Regards,

JR A.

[fadenoid]

Thanks JR A.

Regarding Palm OS5, I've heard rumblings about a Bluetooth SD card that Sandisk was developing which could be used in Zires which were not initially bluetooth supported but running OS5.

Also, I think I'm right in saying that a Palm OS4 device (eg M515) will work with the Palm/Toshiba BT SD card, but won't work with LabVIEW 7.1 PDA native bluetooth pallet VIs, in which case it looks like I'll have to bite the bullet and purchase a Tungsten to do software development with Bluetooth!

Thanks again for the answers.

[JR_A.]

I just ran a quick test using a Palm m505 and the Palm/Toshiba BT SD card and the LabVIEW PDA 7.1 example programs. A LabVIEW PDA 7.1 Bluetooth example was successful and was able to communicate with another LabVIEW PDA 7.1 application running on my iPAQ 4155 with built in Bluetooth. So the Palm BT SD card should work.

Regards,

JR A.

[fadenoid]

Outstanding! I can pick up a Tosh/Palm BT card pretty cheaply so I'll do the same on my 515.

I guess the confusion has arisen from the Labview PDA 7.1 module doc which was stating that os5 was required for bluetooth comms. If it works however, who am I to argue?!

Thanks again for the research.

Cheers,

[Bill Choy]

Hi fadenoid,

I'd like to ask that did you try to use Palm or Pocketpc to communicate with PC through bt usb adapter? I'm confusing how to talk with the BT usb adapter. I saw some discussion about that and many people mentioned TDK adapter. Is it the one can be controlled? Do you have any experiences?

Bill

[fadenoid]

Hello Bill,
I've used the tdk go blue usb adapter hooked up to a PC and have been able to communicate bi-directionally with it using an Ipaq 2210 pocket pc. I'm waiting for the bluetooth card for my Palm 515 so I can replicate this functionality.

The TDK uses the Cambridge Radio chipset which is also used by other dongles, such as the D-Link DBT-120 and these work with the XP service pack 1 generic bleutooth drivers (Q328183 I think), also SP2 and hence LabVIEW. If you are intending to use the TDK, you don't need to load up the suite as long as you have these drivers. (The TDK blu2i development kit incidentally has these drivers on the CD, but not sure if the dongle alone comes with these).

If you do have the driv
ers its just a case of using the high level Vis for both PDA and PC to communicate with each other as client and server.

If the PDA is the client you would set up this using the Open Connection VI and serial service UUID eg:

00001101-0000-1000-8000-00805f9b34fb

For the PC you'd make this the server and use the create listener VI with the above UUID then carry out a Wait on Listener function, and as soon as the other device comes into range you should be in business.

You can also use standard serial comms if you have a virtual port set up for the dongle, but timing can then become an issue. The native bluetooth VIs in LabVIEW take care of all that, and you don't need to set up a serial port in "My Bluetooth Places", as you effectively use the UUID which creates the serial port service you require.

Hope this helps but please drop a line if you have any more questions.

Cheers

[Bill Choy]

Hi fadenoid,

How could you talk with the use port for the BT adapter by using LabVIEW? Did you use VISA USB?

Bill

[fadenoid]

Hello Bill,
What version of LabVIEW are you running?

If you have 7.1, then I would use the bluetooth VIs. Labview then locates the USB dongle as a local bluetooth "conduit" and pretty much does all the work for you. If you're using LB7 then you could use the VISA serial comms VIs.

I've only dabbled with this using the XP2 service pack with generic BT drivers installed. You would set up a pairing with the device you want to communicate to in Bluetooth Places ie your PDA. You would then be offered services, specifically Serial Port Profile (SSP) eg com20. This would then become your virtual serial comm port for exchanging data eg if it is com20 then you would use com20 in your VISA serial comms ro
utine to talk to your remote device ie PDA. My limited experience of this is that timing becomes a little more difficult but once you've set it up it should work ok.

I'm aware of the VISA USB stuff but have to confess that I've not used it yet!

Let me know how you get on and if you get stuck I'll try and answer your questions.

Cheers