Bluetooth communication basics

[Guest]

Hi,

I am using C# to write applications for a PocketPC and a SmartPhone. I need the two to communicate via bluetooth. I need to send/receive custom messages between them. I don't really know that much about communications or bluetooth but I just finished a desktop .net app that used a third party serialport component. Is there such components for bluetooth and .netcf? Is communicating via bluetooth the same as serialports? I thought I saw on the devices settings that the bluetooth ports were COM5 and COM8. Any help would be appreciated.

Thank you,
Joe

 

[Andrew McGrath]

Hi Joe,

We have been developing a product for this since January.

There are a lot of challenges because the Pocket PC will typically be using
the Widcomm stack, while your Smartphone is using the MS Bluetooth stack. We
have come across all sorts of issues including the maximum number of bytes
that can reliably be sent in each frame.

We have the components you are looking for (C code at the driver level,
wrapped with .NET CF for you to write your apps with). These are in final
testing now. If you would be interested in trying these out, I can have a
beta to you by Monday. Will run the latest version past another client first
today.

In our particular case, we have a headless CE device (Bluetooth, GPRS, GPS)
that is running the MS Bluetooth stack and a Pocket PC that is running the
Widcomm stack.

You Smartphone will have the MS Bluetooth stack so it will be essentially
the same as our configuration.

Our software includes all sorts of functionality such as:
-automatic connection as the device comes into range
-limiting pairing to specific devices
-retransmits if incorrect data received
-retransmits if the devices go out of range
-sending named files
-buffering of data at each end in files
-sending data without buffering for speed

We hope to publish the API on our website soon, maybe over the weekend.

Please send me an email offline to discuss further.

Regards

Andrew McGrath
www.mcsoft.com.au
(e-mail address removed)

 

[Toni Gomez]

Hi Andrew,
We are developing an application than should run both on iPaq (Widcomm)
and other Windows CE devices (Microsoft stack).
At first stage it should print to bluetooth enabled printers (simple
line printers) but soon it should read form mag-cards and other serial
devices.
It seems that your company product fits really well in our develoment,
and i have already send an email to your sales person, but had no reply
(only a few days ago )
The point is that i am really excited to see if this meets our product
requirements, do you have some beta testing or something?
And also, how about how much will it cost, or licensing fees, ...


Thanks,

 

[Andrew McGrath]

Hi Toni,

I have replied to you offline.

Cheers,

Andrew