Bluetooth annd Active Sync

[hoffm11]

Can you sync a pocket pc device using bluetooth? If so, what are decent bluetooth USB devices?

[jeasher]

Yeah man. Get yourself a BT USB dongle for your laptop/PC or a PC card for your laptop. Once all the hardware and software is installed on your PC, set up a "pairing." That's when your notebook recognizes your PDA and vice versa. It's very easy to do. Once that is set up you can go to the BT manager in the PDA and create a shortcut to synchronize. Very easy to set the whole thing up.

[Sven Johannsen]

I have found that the biggest hurdle to overcome is the BT software that comes with the BT devices. I initially started with a BT CF card for an Axim and the same manufacturers BT USB dongle. PITA.

Most recently I have been using the BT manager that comes on BT capable iPAQs and a Billionton BT dongle. As was said above, piece of cake.

The hardest part is initially determining what virtual serial port the BT dongle is using on the PC. You have to set that as the comm port in AS on the desktop. The Wizard on the PPC will take care of that side. Once set up, AS configured, devices paired (happened during the wizard), it is a pleasure to sync.

I do want to point out that you don't get the holy grail of the devices recognizing their proximity and initiating a sync. Every wireless or remote sync requires you to initiate the sync from the PPC. You can however set up a schedule for syncing, so that the PPC tries to sync every so often on it's own. Use care with this becuase of battery use when trying and the potential of not disconnecting and draining the battery. Watch it to make sure you know what it is going to do if you set this up.

[CTSLICK]

I am using a Dell X5 Adv with an Ambicom BT CF card and an Ambicom BT USB adapter. I have found a way to make it work but it a bit of a pain in my opinion.

Tell the desktop to find the Dell
Tell the Dell to find the desktop
Check ActiveSync on the Dell and make sure its still set to Bluetooth (this setting doesn't survive a soft reset)
Run the "Go ActiveSync" app to start the connection
Select the device I want to connect with and click Ok

Once I am up and running its pretty stable but if it drops offline (ActiveSync problem?) sometimes I have to soft reset and start all over. The desktop software really angers me as it simply refuses to remember a trusted device and will also occasionally refuse to open the bluetooth stack....grrr.

What is really odd is that when it came to connecting my Dell/BT CF combo with my BT phone, a T68, it went smooth...I mean perfect...flawless...and it always works. So my expectations of interacting with a BT USB adapter from the same company where pretty high.

Having said all of this you might think I am against this set up but I'm not. I really enjoy the wireless connection, it makes it much easier for me to interact with my PDA without having to constantly take it out of the cradle. The range is decent (about 30-35 feet) and allows me to roam from desk and still stay connected.

So I say go for it. But if you are looking at hardware I would be looking at other options.

[draiken]

Ever since I got my iPAQ 2215 and a bluetooth dongle, I only use the cradle to charge my pocketpc

Just remember, that you FIRST have to create a partnership using a cable connection (USB or Serial), then you can sync wirelessly using IR, Bluetooth or WiFi

[senfeng]

Can you sync a pocket pc device using bluetooth? If so, what are decent bluetooth USB devices?If your looking for brands, I'd highly recommend Belkin's USB dongles. For me, it was so much the device, but the Bluetooth explorer sofware that came with it. I've had no name PC Cards and dongles, but their BT Neighborhood software was terrible. The Belkin one is the best I've seen.

[jeasher]

Can you sync a pocket pc device using bluetooth? If so, what are decent bluetooth USB devices?If your looking for brands, I'd highly recommend Belkin's USB dongles. For me, it was so much the device, but the Bluetooth explorer sofware that came with it. I've had no name PC Cards and dongles, but their BT Neighborhood software was terrible. The Belkin one is the best I've seen.

I have a Belkin PC card. I don't know about the software from other companies but Belkin's does seem to be pretty good. The only problem is the signal isn't very strong from the PC card. How is the USB signal?

[senfeng]

Can you sync a pocket pc device using bluetooth? If so, what are decent bluetooth USB devices?If your looking for brands, I'd highly recommend Belkin's USB dongles. For me, it was so much the device, but the Bluetooth explorer sofware that came with it. I've had no name PC Cards and dongles, but their BT Neighborhood software was terrible. The Belkin one is the best I've seen.

I have a Belkin PC card. I don't know about the software from other companies but Belkin's does seem to be pretty good. The only problem is the signal isn't very strong from the PC card. How is the USB signal?They have 2 USB adapters (that I know of). I have the one with the bigger range (100m?). I use it for my notebook and I haven't had any problems with the signal dropping out. It works great for me.

[senfeng]

Just a note:

One thing that I like about their software is that its very stable. You're not going to find some of the bells and wistles that other BT Neighborhoods provide (Blue Chat, etc.), but it works very well. It also gives you the ability to create shortcuts to BT devices (like iPaq's integrated BT software) so that you don't always have to "pair" devices. Anyone try to pair with a BT printer lately? :wink:

[logodesignworks]

Finally I managed to get my iPAQ synchronize with ActiveSync on my desktop via Bluetooth.

Read about how I did it at http://www.logodesignworks.com/iPAQ-activesync-bluetooth-synchronization.htm

Best of luck!

Jeff

www.logodesignworks.com (http://www.logodesignworks.com)

[senfeng]

Finally I managed to get my iPAQ synchronize with ActiveSync on my desktop via Bluetooth.

Read about how I did it at http://www.logodesignworks.com/iPAQ-activesync-bluetooth-synchronization.htm

Best of luck!

Jeff

www.logodesignworks.com (http://www.logodesignworks.com)My setup was a bit different.

* I turned BT on on my iPaq and on my PC (Belkin BT USB adapter). I didn't have to disconect the Cradle.
* I set up my services on both devices (file sharing, serial port, etc.).
* I paired both devices, but I just used some nonsense phrase on both.
* On my PC, I set the BT serial port to an open serial port (I think it was COM 4).
* Then I went to ActiveSync. Under File>Connection Settings, I set it to COM 4 (the same COM port as I set the BT serial port).

I'm pretty sure that that's all I did, other than setting secure/ecryption setting and allowing setting up a list BT devices that I can "talk" to.

On my iPaq, I went to BT Manager, new>connect>activesync via BT.... followed the directions and picket the device. When I went back to BT manager, I'm pretty sure that I just double tapped the shortcut and it synced for me.

I'm not at home right now and I don't have BT on my work PC, so I can't varify these steps right now. I'll make corrections if I get anything wrong.

The only problem that I had so far was when I was trying to sync BT with several devices. During the BT setup, I wasn't allowed modify the COM port. I originally had one set to COM 3 or 4 and the other had COM 3 or 4 already assigned. I had to go back to my original computer and create a dummy COM port then set it to COM 4 or 5 on all devices, then deleted the dummy COM port. There was probably an easier way, but I'm not too bright :wink: