Bluetooth radio power control when needed

[Robb Bates]

Right now I leave my Bluetooth Radio on all the time. But I really only need it on when I want to access the internet. Is there a utility that will automatically turn on the bluetooth radio when needed and turn it off when not needed?

Robb

[Mark_Venture]

Bluetooth Manager icon in the lower right of the screen does this for me...

I activesync over bluetooth at work. By default, I have the bluetooth radio turned off. When I go into BT Manager, it turns the bluetooth radio on, I click on the BT ActiveSync icon. When sync is complete, and I exit BT Manager, it turns the BT radio back off.

Oh, btw, not sure if it makes a difference, but I'm using Wisebar Advanced, so when I click the X to exit BT Manager, it closes, unlike without WA where it would probably remain open in the back ground.

[Robb Bates]

That's good for Active Sync, but I'd like it to be controlled automatically when accessing the internet. I could connect to the internet via the BT Manager, but I like how it connects automatically when a connection is needed, like pulling up a web page in PIE or checking my email in Inbox.

Hey, that brings up another problem. How can I keep Inbox from disconnecting after it does the send and receive function. I have several accounts that I want to check and Inbox has to connect and disconnect for each one.

Robb

[Mark_Venture]

That's good for Active Sync, but I'd like it to be controlled automatically when accessing the internet. I could connect to the internet via the BT Manager, but I like how it connects automatically when a connection is needed, like pulling up a web page in PIE or checking my email in Inbox.
Not sure I follow. I don't know anyway for BT to connect automatically as needed. I've only managed to manually start/stop BT connection for either ActiveSync or Network (internet).

Hey, that brings up another problem. How can I keep Inbox from disconnecting after it does the send and receive function. I have several accounts that I want to check and Inbox has to connect and disconnect for each one.
That I know I don't know the answer to. I don't use the email feature of my iPAQ.

[Sven Johannsen]

Hey, that brings up another problem. How can I keep Inbox from disconnecting after it does the send and receive function. I have several accounts that I want to check and Inbox has to connect and disconnect for each one.

Robb

Can't help on the first part, and this half I just have bad news. As long as you are not saying that your are disconnecting from the internet, just that you have to manually send/receive on each mail account, that's just the way it works. There is no option or method to 'send/receive all'. Yea there should be.

[Robb Bates]

Not sure I follow. I don't know anyway for BT to connect automatically as needed. I've only managed to manually start/stop BT connection for either ActiveSync or Network (internet).


Well, right now I leave my BT radio on and I have BT setup as my default internet connection. So when I check email or get on the internet, my PPC will automatically do the GPRS dial up thing. Make sense? I don't even mess with the BT manager unless I want to ActiveSync via BT which I usually don't do. The problem is my BT radio has to be turned on the whole time, wasting power and haveing that blue light blink in my face the whole time. What I'd like to do is have the radio off all the time unless an internet connection is needed and then have my PPC automatically turn it on and then connect.

Robb

[Mark_Venture]

Well, right now I leave my BT radio on and I have BT setup as my default internet connection. So when I check email or get on the internet, my PPC will automatically do the GPRS dial up thing. Make sense? Ok, so you have your network settings on the PPC to use Bluetooth Dial-up modem as the connection? Since the BT radio is on, its been paired with your phone, so it dials as needed. That I could understand. It would kind of work like Windows on a desktop PC set as "always dial my default connection," right?

[JustMe]

That BT auto-on feature would be a great option to have.

Imagine no more "unable to connect..." errors because your BT radio wasnt turned on when a program needed to connect and dial out to the internet.

I wonder if a program could be created that would "hook" into the OS and detect, intercept and turn on/off the BT radio as needed.

For example..
Program monitors BT radio state
Detects that PIE is trying to connect
If BT radio == off then turn on radio
else proceed to dial connection

Could something like this be implemented so that it would take the place of the Bluetooth Settings (ala flexport) in the Automatically connect to using... area?

Oh the times when I wish I would have remained a Computer Science major. :mrgreen:

DT

[Robb Bates]

There you go! That's it. Any developers looking for something to do?

Robb

[WyattEarp]

That BT auto-on feature would be a great option to have.

Imagine no more "unable to connect..." errors because your BT radio wasnt turned on when a program needed to connect and dial out to the internet.

I wonder if a program could be created that would "hook" into the OS and detect, intercept and turn on/off the BT radio as needed.

For example..
Program monitors BT radio state
Detects that PIE is trying to connect
If BT radio == off then turn on radio
else proceed to dial connection

Could something like this be implemented so that it would take the place of the Bluetooth Settings (ala flexport) in the Automatically connect to using... area?

Oh the times when I wish I would have remained a Computer Science major. :mrgreen:

DT

That's the type of option on my T68i "Automatic" when a call is made (incoming or outgoing) BT fires up and connects to my headset. That would indeed be a great option on a PPC. I'd like to see that for WiFi too. But keep the settings so you can control who and how connections are made.

[that_kid]

There you go! That's it. Any developers looking for something to do?

Robb

That would be nice, Also note that the automatic bluetooth wakeup works for certain bluetooth programs on the ppc but not everything. As a test I turned bluetooth off then I opened a bluetooth chat program and sure enough bluetooth was turned on. When I closed the program bluetooth cut off. It worked this way for mapping programs that I had setup to use bluetooth gps. I always leave bluetooth on as the current draw in stanby mode is next to nothing, but it would be nice for the ppc to turn on bluetooth if you have a bluetooth modem connection already setup.

[JvanEkris]

AFAIK, the bluetooth protocol does this automatically as long as you don't allow it to search or be searched. Bluetooth turns the radio down to the lowest possible level to maintain connection. If it is not connected, i recon it turns it almost completely down...

Jaap