Roving Networks FIREFLY RN-240 User Manual download pdf

Docklight_Application_Note_Bluetooth.doc

Date

2009-06-05

Auth..

Heggelbacher

Docklight Application Note

Bluetooth Serial Port

Applies to: Docklight V1.9 / Docklight Scripting V1.9

Page

V0.1

draft 2009-06-05

He 1 / 13

Ver.

Comment Date Name

Flachmann und

Heggelbacher

www.fuh-edv.de

Docklight Application Note

Docklight Application Note: Bluetooth Serial Port

Table of Contents

Docklight Application Note: Bluetooth Serial Port ............................................................................................1

Bluetooth Serial Ports and Docklight...........................................................................................................1

Reference Configuration..............................................................................................................................1

Configuration Example: Firefly Bluetooth Serial Adapter ............................................................................2

Configuration Example: Cellular phone Bluetooth modem .........................................................................9

Copyright ...................................................................................................................................................13

References ................................................................................................................................................13

1 Bluetooth Serial Ports and Docklight

“Serial Port Profile (SPP)” is one of several services that can be provided by a Bluetooth wireless device.

Other known service categories are for example “Audio Headset” or “Bluetooth Printer”. A Bluetooth Serial

Port can be accessed as a COM port in Windows (e.g. COM3 or COM7), much in the same way as any

RS232 port available on your PC, or any virtual COM port.

Before accessing a Bluetooth Serial Port, it needs to be installed and set up. This includes the following

steps:

• Installing/Enabling Bluetooth support on your Windows operating system.

• Discovering the Bluetooth Device and pairing it with your computer.

• Selecting the Bluetooth Serial Port service for this device and choose a COM port for it (e.g. COM3).

For detailed information on these topics, please refer to the Online Help of the Bluetooth management

software installed on your PC. Several different Bluetooth Configuration Managers / Bluetooth stacks are

available. The most common are

• Broadcom / WIDCOMM Bluetooth Software for Windows [4]

• Microsoft Bluetooth Manager [3]

• Toshiba PC Bluetooth Stack [5]

Using Docklight to connect to a Bluetooth Serial Port should be possible with any of the above mentioned

Bluetooth stacks. But during the Docklight history several problems have been observed by our customers

for certain combinations of Bluetooth chipsets, devices, driver versions and Bluetooth stacks. Such

problems can be a simple error message when opening the COM port, but also include a bluescreen /

reboot crash.

Sometimes the problem only appears with Docklight, but other COM port applications (or even other

Docklight versions) work fine. This is not because there is anything wrong with the way Docklight accesses

a serial COM port, but it simply accesses the serial port driver with much higher frequency than other plain

vanilla applications like Hyperterminal. A bluescreen / reboot crash always originates from the Windows

device driver layer, so there is little Docklight can do about it.

2 Reference Configuration

The following setup describes a reference configuration that has been successfully tested with Docklight:

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