BlueTooth experience and a question

[Cuckoo]

Well,

Let me start off with some little knowledge I gained in the last couple of days.

I've got a powerbook <alu, 1.25ghz> with wich i use a bluetooth mouse. I've tried an iCurve and BT keyboard, but that didn't work for me.... So the keyboard was spare.

And a G4 Powermac <sawtooth>... I've dusted off the sawtooth, added a gig of RAM and it flies!!

But since i've got that spare keyboard i desided it was cool to BT on the powermac as well... So took a leap and just bought an apple BT mouse and a BT dongle. Plugged it in the PM and there it was. BT on a keyboard, mouse, powerbook, mobile phone... everything cosy linked...

But mouse movement was very very choppy. I thought it was the sawtooth not able to cope with Tiger.. and many programs runnig, but the activity monitor didn't support that theory.

So i thought it was a program was bringing the system down.

I booted a clean OS X partion and paired only the mouse... and the mouse was silky smooth.

So my theory was, too many devices on the BT bus... so i deleted all the pairings except keyboard and mouse... which made it about 50% better....

So again, i thought, maybe this is the best the sawtooth can handle, but non of the system resources supported that theory.

But i was fresh out of ideas at that time.

Wanting to bring the PM more into the 21st century. I bought a belking PCI wifi card, which functions as a native airport. Installed that <just plugged it in, and that's it>. And removed the ethernet cable and put the secondary EA basestatoin back in it's place.

And when i booted the system up, to my amazement, not only the wifi worked in a blink, but since the AE basestation is away from the PM the mouse is smooooooth..... i don't have any proof as to why that would be logical... but i'll share it never the less....

But now it comes... the keyboard loses pairing quite often. And whenever i hit a key and wait a second, the pairing is restored... but it gets kinda anoying seeing that keyboard lost picture....

I tried if it was out of range, but even with the keyboard UNDER the BT dongle it loses connection....

Anybody out there have a suggestion?

<oh, and mouse and kb have the latest firmware>
<2nd oh, and it's not a powersave setting, the dongle seems to not even support wake up this computer, a shame, but livable>

Thanks for helping me.. this one is tough for me....

Cuckoo

 

[mkrishnan]

I'm not sure I completely follow what you wrote. Do you mean to say that, as a result of getting the PCI wifi card for the PM, you moved the AEBS farther from it, and then found the BT performance to be better? Why does that surprise you? BT and AE operate at the same frequency (2.4 GHz), and the AEBS is the most powerful AE transmitter in your house (compared to the wifi cards in the computers). So when you moved it farther away, the radiation density of the wifi went down and the interference with the BT went down with it. You can also try playing with the wifi channel....

 

[efoto]

<snip>
<oh, and mouse and kb have the latest firmware>
<2nd oh, and it's not a powersave setting, the dongle seems to not even support wake up this computer, a shame, but livable>

Thanks for helping me.. this one is tough for me....

Cuckoo

It might not be a customizable or user-accessible powersave setting, but it could still be a powersave feature that is built into the devices. I know my friend's BT mouse (forget which) will turn itself off (or low ) after a certain amount of time to save battery. He has no settings or access to change anything either, so if he is away for a while he has to come back and click a button as wiggling the mouse doesn't do it. A second or two later connection is restored and he wiggles and the screen is back, no problem.

Other than that, what mkrishnan said is all I can think of. You can try setting the channel of wifi and see if your BT connection improves, but otherwise being on the same frequency makes the signals run interferance

 

[Cuckoo]

I'm not sure I completely follow what you wrote. Do you mean to say that, as a result of getting the PCI wifi card for the PM, you moved the AEBS farther from it, and then found the BT performance to be better? Why does that surprise you? BT and AE operate at the same frequency (2.4 GHz), and the AEBS is the most powerful AE transmitter in your house (compared to the wifi cards in the computers). So when you moved it farther away, the radiation density of the wifi went down and the interference with the BT went down with it. You can also try playing with the wifi channel....

Hey, that might be the spot... i knew they both operated in the 2.4ghz band, but i thought the channels in that band were different... i know DECT phones and WIFI interfere, but i thought bt was safe... not so.. thanks for clearing that up...

And indeed, you got my drift.... it was exactly what i ment...

This morning, i needed some data from my phone on my PM and i noticed that the speed was only 1-2 KB/s.... so i'm thinking of getting a BT 2.0 dongle for the PM, maybe that should straiten everything out...

<any suggestions for a model/brand?>

 

[efoto]

Hey, that might be the spot... i knew they both operated in the 2.4ghz band, but i thought the channels in that band were different... i know DECT phones and WIFI interfere, but i thought bt was safe... not so.. thanks for clearing that up...

And indeed, you got my drift.... it was exactly what i ment...

This morning, i needed some data from my phone on my PM and i noticed that the speed was only 1-2 KB/s.... so i'm thinking of getting a BT 2.0 dongle for the PM, maybe that should straiten everything out...

<any suggestions for a model/brand?>

Is your phone BT 2.0 compliant? I was under the impression it was a fairly new technology, perhaps a fairly new phone as well....
What speeds does BT run at? BT2.0?

As far as brands go, I Apple sells Linksys dongles I believe, probably a decent brand if that is the one Apple chooses (I would hope they don't sell the crappy one).

Edit: Correction, Apple sells D-Link (confused the link part) adapters, not Linksys.

 

[Cuckoo]

Well, i think bluetooth is downward compatible. So i hope that one BT1.2 device won't take up all available bandwith...

<quote>
the Bluetooth 2.0 spec defines modulation changes and additional packet types that allow designers to deliver a peak rate of 3 Mbit/s (2.1 Mbit/s real throughput) over a Bluetooth connection. In comparison, the Bluetooth 1.2 spec defined a maximum data rate of 1 Mbit/s (723 kbit/s real throughput) over a Bluetooth connection.
</quote>

What troubles me, is that only a mouse and keyboard can't take up 723kbit/s throughput....although it does seem that way.... but there isn't much documentation on apple bt devices, and how much bandwith they take.

Well, maybe i've got to learn and live with it... but it keeps bugging me....

 

[mkrishnan]

Is your phone BT 2.0 compliant? I was under the impression it was a fairly new technology, perhaps a fairly new phone as well....
What speeds does BT run at? BT2.0?

BT1.x runs at a very, very, very slow speed....slower than USB1 -- the max data transfer of all channels combined is <1MB/s and some of those channels are audio. The data channel is only ~500 kb/s.

BT2 is faster -- something like 3MB/s, but there are basically no devices at present that take advantage of it, AFAIK.... The PB does, but I don't know of a lot of BT2 cell phones or PDAs with which you could transfer data at the EDR that are on the market yet, at least in the US. Might find something while you're still in France....

BT *is* downward compatible. And you're right -- there's no way a mouse is taking up much of that bandwidth. My understanding is that BT basically uses channel hopping across the spectrum. But I have heard of people changing their 802.11 channel or moving their base station and getting better performance. FWIW I have my AEBS about 1.5m from my iBook when it's at home and I can use my mouse there, although I rarely do. Microwave ovens and cordless landline phones are also notorious producers of interference in this bandwidth. I had terrible 802.11 at my parents' house until I put a 900MHz phone in place of their 2.4....

 

[efoto]

BT1.x runs at a very, very, very slow speed....slower than USB1 -- the max data transfer of all channels combined is <1MB/s and some of those channels are audio. The data channel is only ~500 kb/s.

BT2 is faster -- something like 3MB/s, but there are basically no devices at present that take advantage of it, AFAIK.... The PB does, but I don't know of a lot of BT2 cell phones or PDAs with which you could transfer data at the EDR that are on the market yet, at least in the US. Might find something while you're still in France....

BT *is* downward compatible. And you're right -- there's no way a mouse is taking up much of that bandwidth. My understanding is that BT basically uses channel hopping across the spectrum. But I have heard of people changing their 802.11 channel or moving their base station and getting better performance. FWIW I have my AEBS about 1.5m from my iBook when it's at home and I can use my mouse there, although I rarely do. Microwave ovens and cordless landline phones are also notorious producers of interference in this bandwidth. I had terrible 802.11 at my parents' house until I put a 900MHz phone in place of their 2.4....

My memory fails me again, but I remember seeing an article in a tech magazine not long ago about either Phillips or Siemens releasing a 5.6Ghz cordless phone for home use. Not sure the price of these things but if they are available to market but if so, you could get one of those and have it run over the AEBS instead of shafting your parents with 900Mhz

 

[jalagl]

My memory fails me again, but I remember seeing an article in a tech magazine not long ago about either Phillips or Siemens releasing a 5.6Ghz cordless phone for home use. Not sure the price of these things but if they are available to market but if so, you could get one of those and have it run over the AEBS instead of shafting your parents with 900Mhz

It is actually a 5.8GHz phone. I have one from Panasonic, and it works great- has greater range than any of the 2.4GHz phones in my house, probably because the 2.4 band is pretty much saturated at this point.

 

[efoto]

It is actually a 5.8GHz phone. I have one from Panasonic, and it works great- has greater range than any of the 2.4GHz phones in my house, probably because the 2.4 band is pretty much saturated at this point.

I knew someone would correct me, I was running a pure guess. Well there you have it, get your parents one of those mkrishnan and then they won't have to suffer for your airport reception

 

[mkrishnan]

Thanks, perhaps I should! Although, to be honest, I've always been fond of the performance of 900MHz devices.... There isn't anyone using wifi in their house frequently enough at the moment for it to matter one way or another, though. But yes, it seems like 5.8 is the way to go!

 

[screensaver400]

Haven't 5.8 ghz phones been out for quite some time? They were very expensive originally, but available at Best Buy and the like. I got a set of two 5.8 ghz Vtech phones (1 base, two handsets) for $100 from Fry's just after Christmas of this year.

 

[mkrishnan]

Haven't 5.8 ghz phones been out for quite some time? They were very expensive originally, but available at Best Buy and the like. I got a set of two 5.8 ghz Vtech phones (1 base, two handsets) for $100 from Fry's just after Christmas of this year.

Maybe.... I think I last bought a landline phone 8 years ago. I haven't even had landline service in more than a year, and it was a token (to get DSL) for the three years before that.

 

[efoto]

Haven't 5.8 ghz phones been out for quite some time? They were very expensive originally, but available at Best Buy and the like. I got a set of two 5.8 ghz Vtech phones (1 base, two handsets) for $100 from Fry's just after Christmas of this year.

Could very well be. Like mkrishnan said, I haven't purchased a landline phone in ages, well come to think of it probably ever! My parents have some decent 2.4Ghz phones at the house (base upstairs and a second handset downstairs) and at school I bring one of the older sloped corded phones for our apartment, since the only time people call that is to be buzzed in or setup a party.

Everything I do is cellphone, I have purchased lord knows how many of those. Recently I just got all of the top-line phones from Siemens, it's great having friends who work at companies like that Now they released their new line....I'll have to see if I can get those.

From that price you gave screensaver400, I might just have to pick up some of those phones. Is that only at B&M stores or does that count for online purchases as well? We don't have Fry's around me, not even sure they have an online store