Bluetooth - closer yet.

[KryptoNyte]

There is some new progress on the bluetooth development for the Nook Color:

http://forum.xda-developers.com/show...897934&page=18

[SCION]

Hey Krypto! Haven't seen you around.

[RoboRay]

It's here! CM7 on the NookColor has usable Bluetooth. It's still a work-in-progress with limited range (only a few feet), but is available and working.

There's even a bootable SD-card version for those who aren't ready to clobber their stock system to test it out: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=989637

[apeine]

Does this bluetooth allow use of external BT keyboard? That would be top of cool for NC.

[Lemurion]

Originally Posted by apeine

Does this bluetooth allow use of external BT keyboard? That would be top of cool for NC.

Yes, there have been numerous reports of people successfully using a BT keyboard with the NC.

[KryptoNyte]

Yeah, it needs some more development time for stability, compatibility, and range.

[Lemurion]

From what I've heard, range may be an insurmountable issue as there seems to be a possibility that the antenna pins for the part of the chip that supports the BT function may not be connected.

But it's early yet, so who knows. It's got that perfect blend of openness and hidden capabilities that dev communities love.

[KryptoNyte]

Originally Posted by SCION

Hey Krypto! Haven't seen you around.

Hi, Scion! I have to admit, I'm not much of a reader, unless you include technical manuals. I ended up purchasing the Virgin Mobile Optimus V smartphone for 130 bucks, and that's been fun to fool with. It's a pretty sweet deal with $40/mo no-contract, unlimited data/txt/email and 1200 talk minutes.

I installed the "Quick Settings" app on the smartphone and have the NC tethered to it. The 3G on Virgin Mobile's network has been less than impressive, so hopefully that will improve as they work on the network (I believe it's just using Sprint's network).

Another guy wrote an app called TetherGPS, and I now have the $5 GPS app "Copilot" running on the NC, tethered to the smartphone's GPS via the wireless tether, and then linked with TetherGPS. Copilot's certainly not the best GPS I've used, but it's functional I guess.

If the NC's internal FM radio was actually functional, I'd probably already have it mounted in the car.

[KryptoNyte]

Originally Posted by Lemurion

From what I've heard, range may be an insurmountable issue as there seems to be a possibility that the antenna pins for the part of the chip that supports the BT function may not be connected.

But it's early yet, so who knows. It's got that perfect blend of openness and hidden capabilities that dev communities love.

BT/wireless use the same antenna - it just needs more developer fiddling.

[GreenMonkey]

Originally Posted by KryptoNyte

BT/wireless use the same antenna - it just needs more developer fiddling.

Yup. A tear down confirmed the antenna is connected.

The problem is that wi-fi and bluetooth inherently interfere with each other, both being on the same frequency band. Technically, they're not supposed to (BT should hop frequency to to avoid the wi-fi interference...something like that for wi-fi also...). But realistically they can and do interfere with each other, especially at very close ranges.

Typically in computer hardware implementations that have wi-fi and BT on the same chip, they set up the BT and Wi-fi to basically alternate broadcasting/frequency hop at high rates to avoid interfering with each other (best simple explanation I can make of it). So far though disabling wi-fi didn't help much...so probably something else at work here.

This is what I've been waiting for to justify moving from my rooted 1.0.0 setup. I kinda like the B&N launcher since I read on the NC pretty regularly...but it sounds like it's time to try CM7. Will work on it later this week / nexxt week, especially if they manage to improve the range at all.