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Re: [ecs] a more general bluetooth question Kevin Keane Fri, 14 Apr 2006 20:00:13 -0700

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OK, I don't know all that much about Bluetooth, but the general idea is
very similar to the way USB works. I believe that the data that goes
across the radio network is the same protocol as the USB protocol, but I
could be mistaken. It is definitely NOT TCP/IP, probably more akin to
ethernet frames.

Dario is right, of course. Just as with USB, until you "plug in" a
device, you can't communicate with it. In Bluetooth, instead of plugging
in a cable, you have to pair the device. Pairing survives forever,
though. So you only have to pair devices once. After that, the two
bluetooth devices will communicate whenever they are close to each
other.

There indeed is a generic way, deep in the system. I don't know the
details, though. The Linux bluetooth driver is open source, so you
should be able to learn a lot about how it works from that source code,
or even just from studying the configuration files in /etc/bluetooth. Of
course, the Windows drivers will work differently - but at least it will
tell you about the protocol and the underlying concepts.

On Fri, 2006-04-14 at 20:32 -0400, Mark Gilmore wrote:
> when a BT device comes within range,
> is there a *generic* way by which that device "appears" on the PC 
> (perhaps as a folder entry of some kind) ?
> thanks
> 
> Mark Gilmore
> http://OmnipotenceSoftware.com  
> 

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