Best Way to Connect Ipaq 3975 Bluetooth to My DSL for Internet Access [Archive]

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imatrout

01-13-2003, 12:07 AM

Janak Parekh

01-13-2003, 01:26 AM

Two choices: either get a Bluetooth adapter for your desktop or get a Bluetooth access point. The latter is the best but may cost you some more $$.

http://www.expansys.us/d_bluetooth.asp is a good place to start to see the variety of BT products available. Mind you, in the US Expansys is not usually the cheapest vendor, but they do have a really convenient catalog.

--janak

seanturner

01-13-2003, 02:20 AM

You could also get an 802.11b card for your iPaq. There are several compact flash and PCMCIA solutions available. You would, however, have to buy an expansion sleeve to get either to work. Here are some speed tests i've done on 802.11b on the iPaq to give you at least a general overview of the speeds you're going to get:

http://www.pdajunkie.net/wirelessinetspeedtest.htm

imatrout

01-13-2003, 02:26 AM

Any word yet on the availability of a SDIO 802.11b card? I though for sure somebody would announce at CES last week.

seanturner

01-13-2003, 02:27 AM

I'm pretty sure someone did announce one....

seanturner

01-13-2003, 02:28 AM

I'm pretty sure someone did announce one.... But the problem would be power consumption and range. I did a review of the iPaq 5400 and the power consumption was a pretty big problem. But, it does have a knobby antenna which gets the same range as a PCMCIA Orinoco Gold Card. I wonder what a SD card would get range wise with such a small antenna....

Take a look at the benchmarkes here: http://www.pdajunkie.net/wirelessinetspeedtest.htm

and the article here: http://www.pdajunkie.net/wirelessinet5400.htm

Janak Parekh

01-13-2003, 03:01 AM

seanturner, imatrout specifically said he wants to avoid a sleeve.

imatrout, SanDisk announced earlier this week in CES of its intention of releasing SD WiFi solutions. In fact, we had an announcement of the fact on the front page.

--janak

seanturner

01-13-2003, 03:02 AM

seanturner, imatrout specifically said he wants to avoid a sleeve.

--janak

Oh, sorry, didn't catch that...

Brad Adrian

01-13-2003, 04:04 AM

...SanDisk announced earlier this week in CES of its intention of releasing SD WiFi solutions...
Now THAT'S something I can use. I absolutely love my Phone Edition, but miss the WiFi capability. And, now that I've upgraded it to 128MB of internal memory, I can afford to pop out the SD memory card and use a WiFi instead.

I can't wait!

Janak Parekh

01-13-2003, 04:11 AM

I can't wait!
Yes you can, because the PPC PE has no SDIO support yet. :cry:

--janak

seanturner

01-13-2003, 04:13 AM

I can't wait!
Yes you can, because the PPC PE has no SDIO support yet. :cry:

--janak

No Brad, no!!! Don't commit suicide! Please! We need you!

VintageSlots

01-13-2003, 06:23 AM

I have an ipaq 3975 that's Bluetooth enabled. What's the best way to connect it to my home network to get internet access? I also have a 802.11 wireless network in my home and cat 5 cable everywhere. I am trying any way I can to avoid getting a sleeve and CF card.

Thanks for the help![/b]

Frankly, I wouldn't bother with Blue Tooth and networking because of the limited range of Blue Tooth (approx. 30 ft.).

I have an 802.11b network setup in my house and it works great. I can use my laptop and/or Ipaq from anywhere in the house. The connection to the Internet is DSL.

seanturner

01-13-2003, 06:32 AM

What is the realistic speed of bluetooth on the PPC anyway?

Jorgen

01-13-2003, 07:49 AM

>I wouldn't bother with Blue Tooth

True, I also use Wi-fi on my PPC, but syncing wirelessly is well worth the money by itself. I sync over BT to my Tungsten T.

Jorgen

Jorgen

01-13-2003, 07:53 AM

You can BTW get a BT dongle (Belkin?) with a reach of 100m (though the standard says 100 yards, I think!).

Jorgen

Janak Parekh

01-13-2003, 06:42 PM

seanturner

01-14-2003, 12:53 AM

What is the realistic speed of bluetooth on the PPC anyway?
On the old units, like the 3870, you'll get about 115kbps. On the modern ones you should get the full 600-700kbps. Certainly enough for light surfing and the occasional email check.

--janak

Wow... the 600-700 is pretty fast considering I only got about 180-1100kb using various different 802.11b methods... I might just have to get a bluetooth adapter for my laptop... http://www.pdajunkie.net/wirelessinetspeedtest.htm

Janak Parekh

01-14-2003, 04:07 AM

Wow... the 600-700 is pretty fast considering I only got about 180-1100kb using various different 802.11b methods... I might just have to get a bluetooth adapter for my laptop...
Mind you, I'm saying you should; I haven't personally tested it. In any case, you probably can't leverage 802.11b's full potential because of the way the networking stack/hardware is architected in Pocket PCs. I can say that, even over the 115kbps Bluetooth connection, it's great for light surfing. I don't have a need to stream music, so I can't comment on that. :)

--janak

imatrout

01-14-2003, 07:32 AM

Well, I seem to have started quite a discussion here. I have spent 5 hours trying to set up surfing the web and activesync over a Belkin BT USB adapter. It is a huge pain. I have a 802.11b wireless network in my home with 3 computers attached and networking and did it in less time than I've spent on this dinky Bluetooth stuff. So..back to my original question:

What's the best way to provision 802.11b wireless on an iPaq 3975. My priorities are:

1. No bulky kludges
2. Moderate costs
3. Optimal Battery utilization.

Thanks ALL. Even your unrelated comments have been helpful.

imatrout

01-14-2003, 04:15 PM

I can't wait!
Yes you can, because the PPC PE has no SDIO support yet. :cry:

--janak

janek, are you saying that Pocket PC 2002 Professional does not support SDIO? If not, when will they? I thought it was more of a hardware issue..

Janak Parekh

01-14-2003, 05:32 PM

I have spent 5 hours trying to set up surfing the web and activesync over a Belkin BT USB adapter. It is a huge pain.
Weird, I just bought the Belkin USB adapter (the one with the antenna), plugged it in, and was go with my 3870 in about 20 minutes (well, add 10 minutes for downloading the latest driver from Belkin's website, something I do by habit). The one hangup for me was enabling Internet Connection Sharing on the desktop: you must do that, even if you have an existing DHCP/NAT router. Also make sure you paired the devices first; once all that's done, go into BT Manager on the iPaq, go to the computer icon, and there's an option in the Actions menu to connect to the desktop's network.

The SD WiFi solution may be easier for you, but you might have to wait a couple months for the channel to have the products.

janek, are you saying that Pocket PC 2002 Professional does not support SDIO? If not, when will they? I thought it was more of a hardware issue..
Sorry, I was being vague. The HTC Wallaby Pocket PC Phone Edition as sold by T-Mobile does not currently support SDIO. Rumor has it that it's a driver issue (as opposed to a hardware issue), but this is something only HTC and/or T-Mobile will be able to tell us. As to the operating system itself supporting SDIO, if there's a driver sure it will, although for a lot of SDIO peripherals the driver must conform to the BSquare SDIO Now! initiative. Hopefully MS will be able to bundle these drivers into the OS in future versions :)

--janak

imatrout

01-16-2003, 03:36 AM

Thanks Janak, you've been very helpful. I returned the BT stuff as I'm much more versed on 802.11. I assume you saw the SanDisk announcement of their combo 128/256 memory cards with 801.11b built in? I'm waiting for that!

Later and thanks again

Janak Parekh

01-16-2003, 03:41 AM