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USB to Bluetooth Adapters? 24

Posted by Cliff from the do-they-even-exist-yet dept.
OtakuMan asks: "I am looking for a Bluetooth adapter so I can free up some of my USB slots. I have found many Bluetooth -> USB adapters, but I have not found any USB -> Bluetooth adapters. Any help?"
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USB to Bluetooth Adapters? More

USB to Bluetooth Adapters?

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  • articualate! (Score:2, Insightful)

    by xWeston ( 577162 )
    you dont make sense Do you want to have more USB ports on some sort of wireless device so that it isnt by your computer? Or do you want a wireless adapter to connect to your usb port

    • Re:articualate! (Score:2, Informative)

      by Speedy8 ( 594486 )
      He wants to have fewer USB ports taken up on his computer and he wants to be able to make his USB devices portable and cut baack on the cables they have. Something like a USB hub that instead of plugging into the computer through USB but used bluetooth to do it.
  • The only thing that would make sense here is a device that bluetooth-enables a non-bluetooth device i.e. a USB printer, so that a bluetooth laptop can easily hook up to it no sweat. Don't know of any. I haven't really been looking though either. Such a device would be nice, since there's only a handful of bluetooth printers right now.

    Just "freeing-up" USB ports can be accomplished with a USB hub (as probably mentioned already). So unless you need the mentioned functionality described above, then why bother with bluetooth at all?

    Andy
  • If you just want more USB ports, wouldn't it be easier to drop $20 at the store for a USB hub?

  • Good luck! (Score:4, Informative)

    by Raetsel ( 34442 ) on Wednesday September 11, 2002 @03:47AM (#4235366)

    I'll be very, very surprised to see the kind of thing you seem to be looking for. It sounds almost like you plugged one of those bluetooth dongles into a USB hub, another Bluetooth dongle into your computer, and wondered why you couldn't use the hub. (Is that what you had in mind?)

    Problems:

    1. IIRC, USB requires a computer to "run the hub." It has to be in the loop, somewhere, to arbitrate/manage/etc. the connections.

      (IEEE 1394/Firewire/iLink, on the other hand, doesn't require the computer and thus you can plug your Firewire-equipped Mini-DV camcorder into your Firewire VCR (or editing deck) and expect it to work. Curiosity point: any /.ers out there plugged a Firewire hard drive straight into a DV camcorder and had it work?)

    2. USB -- version 1.x -- is designed for 12 Mbit/sec. Bluetooth tops out (for now) at 1 Mbit/sec. (i.e. USB over Bluetooth? Bad idea.)
    Short version: I don't think USB was designed to work that way. You do get it to work and that's going to be one hell of an ugly hack.
    • 1. USB -- version 1.x -- is designed for 12 Mbit/sec.
      That's burst speed. Sustained speed is only a tenth of that. And most USB devices are even slower than that.
    • Some thoughts on your thoughts...

      1. True, thus, the device needs some logic and a device driver on the computer side, but that was inevidible anyway (how else would you make bluetooth work ;))
        Besides, if you read the spec for HID over BT [bluetooth.org] it says "The Human Interface Device Profile Specification [4] defines the protocols, procedures, and features that shall be used by Bluetooth Human Interface Devices, such as keyboards, pointing devices, gaming devices, and remote monitoring devices. This specification uses the USB (Universal Serial Bus) definition of Human Interface Device (HID) [4] in order to leverage the existing class drivers for USB HID devices." which I take as it would be possible to make an USB hub that runs over BT.

      2. This is mostly true.
        Bluetooth isn't designed for highspeed (atleast not 1.x of the standard) but you're missing something here. Most people aren't like us. If you could put the "USB-BT" hub anywhere in your room and connect keyboards, mouse, joystick, pocketpc's then I don't think they'd complain much about speed. Not now atleast. I mean, people run iPaq via the serial cable for crying out loud ;) (which is 0.1 Mbit/sec)
      I for one wouldn't mind at all. I think the biggest problem here is to get the latency low enough to make a device such as the mouse work good enough.

      Btw, while they are developing the USB-BT hub, they could also make it act as a repeater for the BT in the computer, thus increasing the range of my other BT equipped hardware :-)

      /Henric

  • Close, but no cigar (Score:2, Informative)

    by cookd ( 72933 )
    I'm guessing you mean you want a Bluetooth dongle you can plug into your USB (printer | scanner | keyboard | mouse | HDD | joystick | pressure cooker) and make it work -- since this is the kind that seems hard to find.

    Bad news -- it doesn't exist, and probably won't ever exist. If it does, it will be a hack that will cause a whole generation of telephone support personnelle to commit suicide (similar to the invention of parallel port scanners and other hack-job peripherals).

    All is not lost, though. You can at least get rid of some wires. They [they.com] make Bluetooth Parallel adapters [mobileplanet.com] and Bluetooth Serial adapters [holtmann.org], some of which even have Linux drivers available! While not a complete solution, it is a (good?) start.
  • There are bluetooth adapters that allow you to replace a generic RS232 cable or a generic parallel printer cable. Would these let you connect your peripherals?

    P.S. Is your nest of cabling really that bad?

  • Me too! (Score:5, Funny)

    by floydigus ( 415917 ) on Wednesday September 11, 2002 @06:28AM (#4235793)
    I am looking for a connector to connect my Ask Slashdot questions to the editors.

    I know this is possible, because I have seen other peoples questions get posted.

    Maybe it's because mine aren't stupid enough?
    Please help!
  • I'm looking for a bluetooth enabler for my existing peripherals. I've got an existing USB/ps2 keyboard and trackball. They're not super expensive, but $100 or more. More importantly, I like my trackball and logictech no longer makes the same form factor. Does there (or will there) exist an adapter that would allow me to bluetooth enable these? I'm looking for a magic box that I plug these into via USB (or ps2 for that matter) and the magic box then connects to a laptop (or whatever) wirelessly via bluetooth. I know this sounds silly when I could just plug in the USB cable, but I'd like to have a 'wireless dock' to these peripherals.

    Bandwidth shouldn't be a problem, since its just a keyboard and mouse. I expect to see bluetooth versions in the market in the next year (or five). It seems like this is a feasible thing to build, but it might be prohibitively exspensive. Other applications might include adapting keyboards and mice for handhelds that don't have USB controllers but are bluetooh enabled.

  • he has a usb bluetooth dongle, and wants to buy some bluetooth 'things' to slap on the end of his normal keyboard, mouse, etc.

    hahahahaha. no.

    those devices are chatty and expect to draw their power from the usb port, as well as have nice snappy speeds going up to it - and you'll quickly find yourself bottlenecked using bluetooth anywhere near 802.11b, or with multiple devices.

    buy some cable ties.
  • I want an IDE-to-PCI adaptor and a PS/2-to-USB adaptor while we're at it. Maybe a USB-to-AGP adaptor, too, if you can find the time.
  • Yeah, another difficulty -- USB provides power from the host (about 500 mA).
    Perhaps the USB-bluetooth adapter could fire a series of small lighting bolts?
  • has a blue tooth usb extender... makes usb wireless.
  • look to the apple for the answer [dlink.com]

    does it work on linux/pc? maybe a comparable product?
  • Expansys [expansys.com]do a whole range of bluetooth accessories, I have used them for other components and am awaiting a shipment right now, sofar no issues.

    If you are not UK resident ( very probable on slashdot :-) all the bits should be available elsewhere if you find what you are looking for.

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