visa COM vs bluetooth

[Solar Flare]

Hello all,

I have a question regarding the difference between the visa COM and bluetooth resources in LabVIEW.  Specificially, I am interested in the following.

I am using a bluetooth dongle which has an associated COM port name to a slave device.  On the slave side, I have a bluetooth receiver connected to a microcontroller.  Currently I am using the visa COM resource in labview to talk to the microcontroller, and I set all the parameters to be the same (baud rate, etc.).  It works fine.  Would there be any advantage to switching to a bluetooth resource box in Labview (high speed transfer for data streaming maybe)?

Thanks,

Mehdi

[StephanieA]

Mehdi,

When you say bluetooth resouce box, what exactly are you referring to? Are you asking about the difference between using VISA VIs that access a COM port versus using the VIs specific for bluetooth? Can you post a screenshot of your code so I can see what VIs you are currently using? This will help me to better understand what you are attempting to accomplish.

[Solar Flare]

Hello,

I have attached screenshots.  Visa_com is what I have implemented and bluetooth_labview shows the "resources" I am referring to.  Things work fine as is, I would like just like to know what the exact difference is and if there is any advantage to using one over another.

To clarify, I am talking to a microcontroller from the computer via bluetooth.

PC --> Usb bluetooth dongle --> wireless transfer thru air --> Bluetooth RN-41 module --> microcontroller

As of right now, the "PC --> Usb bluetooth dongle" is done using a serial COM port interface, as shown in my first attachment.

Thanks,

Mehdi

[Dennis_Knutson]

Unless your 'dongle' shows up in Windows as a bluetooth device, you can't use the bluetooth functions.

Please get rid of that sequence structure and all those local variables. Directly wiring the error out to the error in is the preferred method.

[cfhuerta]

Hi Solar Flare, 

I'm interested to implement Bluetooth communication over a USB dongle using LabView VISA resources.

If is not too much trouble, could you please share the Bluetooth USB dongle you are using.

Thank you.

[RTSLVU]

If your BT dongle already installs a virtual com port, I see no benefit to using the BT primitives over VISA.

IMHO: Those are for "raw" BT devices where you have to roll your own communication protocols from scratch. 

OH: I didn't realize this was an old thread that has risen from the grave...

But to the post reviver any BT dongle that Windows recognizes and installs a virtual com port will work with VISA.

Once both your BT devices are paired the "Bluetooth part" becomes transparent and communicating with a device over BT with VISA is no different than communicating with any other device on a com port with VISA