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Show HN: Bluetooth USB Peripheral Relay – Bridge Bluetooth Devices to USB

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Re: Show HN: Bluetooth USB Peripheral Relay – Bridge Bluetooth Devices to USB

#91

This solves a huge annoyance I've had: swap a Bluetooth keyboard/mouse between multiple laptops, without manually un0paring / re-pairing. I have a personal "hot desk" at home. I want to be able to plug in any laptop to the large monitor, and have the wireless keyboard/mouse on that desk instantly work. And when I leave the desk with my laptop, I don't want that keyboard/mouse connected anymore. This has been impossib…

I've had many BT mouse and keyboards which supported multiple pairing profiles on the device. When I want to switch the device I just press a button on the mouse or keyboard and it's connected almost instantly.

My current keyboard:

https://www.logitech.com/en-us/products/keyboards/mx-mechani...

Re: Show HN: Bluetooth USB Peripheral Relay – Bridge Bluetooth Devices to USB

#92

A potential use case for this is using BT-only peripherals, like Apple Magic Trackpad/keyboard, with KVM/USB switches. Would this work? I’d buy one. I currently have to use Synergy to share peripherals between two MacBooks.

Magic Trackpad 2 and (Mac) Magic Keyboards appear as USB HID devices when connected to a computer via Lightning-to-USB (-A or -C) cable. One annoyance is that macOS automatically Bluetooth pairs with these devices when connected via USB, overwriting any existing pairing, but this shouldn't matter for purely wired scenarios. For switching Bluetooth devices more generally, observe that most Bluetooth controllers are US…

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Re: Show HN: Bluetooth USB Peripheral Relay – Bridge Bluetooth Devices to USB

#93
post #79

Does this support headphones/audio too?

Audio support would be awesome. I would love to be able to use my AirPods and other Bluetooth headphones on gaming consoles

As someone who uses Bluetooth headphones on a Switch and gaming PC from time to time, it's generally not a great experience. Computers and phones and what not compensate for the delay often for video sources, but low latency gaming can become noticeable for things like SBC and what not. Those proprietary wireless headphones are doing a lot to try and optimize the latency.

Re: Show HN: Bluetooth USB Peripheral Relay – Bridge Bluetooth Devices to USB

#95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same with keyboards and mouses which use insecure usb radio receivers. This company policy doesn't really prevent that. The best way to correctly fight Shadow IT is to provide equipment and services so good nobody would even care using something else.

I'm always a proponent of just spending some money on your office equipment. Even a $90 mouse and $200 keyboard costs less than a tenth of a percent of salary of an average office worker, never mind developer (amortized over a very conservative 5 year lifespan). Give people the option to choose between 2-3 sanctioned models, throw in some vertical mice and split keyboard options and you can even brag about how much y…

> Give people the option to choose between 2-3 sanctioned models

It quickly grows past the 2-3 sanctioned models. Everyone wants something not on the list, lots of bickering of "why was that model chosen?", etc. Well that pre-approved model is $150, this is only $175. Bob got that $175 model, this is only $200, it's not that much. Jenny got that $200 model, this is only $250. Jenny's got a $250 keyboard? I gotta upgrade, here's this $300 model... Wait did the company just buy Bill a 55" 4K display? I need that too...

Suddenly your $150/person budget has exploded to replace everyone's equipment for $1,000+ otherwise it's just not fair someone else got more.

Personally I'm fine with me buying and owning my own kb+m. Maybe give a once a year or two office hardware stipend or whatever. Then otherwise make basic stuff available for free. If you're wanting a $200 keyboard you're probably wanting a particular $200 keyboard, and it's probably not one of those 2-3 approved models.

Re: Show HN: Bluetooth USB Peripheral Relay – Bridge Bluetooth Devices to USB

#96
post #80

This solves a huge annoyance I've had: swap a Bluetooth keyboard/mouse between multiple laptops, without manually un0paring / re-pairing. I have a personal "hot desk" at home. I want to be able to plug in any laptop to the large monitor, and have the wireless keyboard/mouse on that desk instantly work. And when I leave the desk with my laptop, I don't want that keyboard/mouse connected anymore. This has been impossib…

All of this is being insanely overcomplicated. Throwing more complexity at a simple problem might be "fun" from a nerd's POV, and, TBH, building this USB device sounds fun. But entirely unneeded while introducing more points of failure. A simple solution to your problem: 1. Get a monitor with a built-in USB hub (nearly all of them?). Consider getting a USB-C monitor to reduce the number of cables to 1. 2. Don't use B…

So your solution to solving one tiny flaw with the GP's otherwise-working setup is to... throw away their monitor, keyboard, and mouse, and spend lots of money (many times more money than an RPi-with-a-hat costs) to replace them?

All because you're offended by the complexity of... what?

• The idea of a device that acts as a stable host for Bluetooth devices, while presenting as a wired USB hub to an upstream USB host controller?

• The particular implementation here, which is a hacky proof-of-concept of the idea (and which could, in practice, be reduced to a single chip embedded into any USB-C-dock product if there was demand)?

• The entire concept of Bluetooth?

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Also, I would like to point out that, given that this is HN, it's more than even odds that the GP:

• likely has multiple monitors (so using a monitor with a built-in hub is likely untenable);

• and also, that their laptops are probably Macbooks, and their mouse and keyboard are therefore very likely a Magic Keyboard and Magic Trackpad [for which there is no 1:1 substitute that does non-Bluetooth wireless while still having the same level of macOS support/integration];

• and that, given what they've said, they're likely already using a Thunderbolt hub to talk to those multiple monitors + all their USB devices through "one cable" (and all they really want is to add one more USB connection to this dock to make it act like a "Bluetooth dock" too);

• and that they likely have a big deep sit-stand desk, that they'd be cluttering/making it hard to put things on the 90% of the free "middle space" on, if they had to run actual wires from the keyboard and mouse over to the dock.

Re: Show HN: Bluetooth USB Peripheral Relay – Bridge Bluetooth Devices to USB

#97

This solves a huge annoyance I've had: swap a Bluetooth keyboard/mouse between multiple laptops, without manually un0paring / re-pairing. I have a personal "hot desk" at home. I want to be able to plug in any laptop to the large monitor, and have the wireless keyboard/mouse on that desk instantly work. And when I leave the desk with my laptop, I don't want that keyboard/mouse connected anymore. This has been impossib…

many Bluetooth USB dongles have NVRAM, you can write the link key for a device (eg the keyboard or mouse) into the NVRAM and then when connecting, the dongle doesn't ask the Host computer for the key. I have used this to dual boot with a Bluetooth keyboard and mouse in the past.

I think the technique would be: pair in machine A (A has a link key). Then, pair again in machine B with the same dongle. Write that key into NVRAM, and machine A considers the device paired but it never gets asked for the key so just works if you plug the dongle into either machine. I don't know how the monitor thing works, does it act as a USB hub? I guess you can just leave the Bluetooth dongle plugged in there..

Re: Show HN: Bluetooth USB Peripheral Relay – Bridge Bluetooth Devices to USB

#98
post #12

This is a wonderful hack! But — using a Raspberry Pi and Linux is overkill for this. It introduces huge unnecessary complexity. A simpler approach would be to go with Zephyr and a small microcontroller (ARM Cortex M4).

Thank you! I think that's a fair point about potentially wasted resources, something like Pico would have been and a leaner choice if this was going to be mass-produced. But for me, part of the decision was my comfort level with system programming and what I desired to tinker with and learn along the way and still, it's a very affordable option (around 20 CAD I believe) Perhaps I'll look into porting it to Pico in fu…

Please don't get me wrong: I really do appreciate the hack value and I absolutely understand choosing this route to scratch a personal itch!

My point was more general: I see a lot of things getting built using Linux that really have no need for this level of complexity. And it doesn't come free: complex systems are more fragile, there are more things that can go wrong.

In this particular case, I'd recommend taking a look (for example) at the Seeed XIAO nRF52840 module and Zephyr: around $10, very capable CPU, very good Bluetooth stack (Zephyr+Nordic), USB-C connector.

Re: Show HN: Bluetooth USB Peripheral Relay – Bridge Bluetooth Devices to USB

#99
This is very cool. I have a Kinesis Freestyle2 Blue for Mac that keep having repeating key issue when paired with my Macbook. The Kinesis CS unhelpfully blame Apple's BT stack implementation and offered no solution. I never had issues with the keyboard when connected to a Linux machine, so this will work nicely for my home office setup!

I'm assuming this also works with Pi Zero 2 W? (The repo only mention the original Zero W)

Re: Show HN: Bluetooth USB Peripheral Relay – Bridge Bluetooth Devices to USB

#100
post #99

This is very cool. I have a Kinesis Freestyle2 Blue for Mac that keep having repeating key issue when paired with my Macbook. The Kinesis CS unhelpfully blame Apple's BT stack implementation and offered no solution. I never had issues with the keyboard when connected to a Linux machine, so this will work nicely for my home office setup! I'm assuming this also works with Pi Zero 2 W? (The repo only mention the origina…

Actually, I meant to say Pi Zero 2 W as well. But basically, any device that supports USB OTG
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