Palm and Pocket PCs with bluetooth cards

Question

Has anyone had any experience of using LabVIEW 7.1 PDA with Pocket PCs or Palms fitted with a bluetooth card?
Most Palms I've come across e.g. the Tungsten series are bluetooth enabled internally, so is it a case that LabVIEW can only see the internal BT device when the native BT vis in LabVIEW are being used to create apps?
Similarly, I've used the same BT VIs for Pocket PC 2003 devices with BT hardware already inside (specifically Ipaq H2210,which ran faultlessly) but I am unsure whether a Pocket PC running 2003 with say a CF card can be utilised using those same BT comms VIs (same goes for a Palm with OS5 and a Bluetooth SD card)?
Cheers

Answer 1

Hello Bill,
I've used the tdk go blue usb adapter hooked up to a PC and have been able to communicate bi-directionally with it using an Ipaq 2210 pocket pc. I'm waiting for the bluetooth card for my Palm 515 so I can replicate this functionality.
The TDK uses the Cambridge Radio chipset which is also used by other dongles, such as the D-Link DBT-120 and these work with the XP service pack 1 generic bleutooth drivers (Q328183 I think), also SP2 and hence LabVIEW. If you are intending to use the TDK, you don't need to load up the suite as long as you have these drivers. (The TDK blu2i development kit incidentally has these drivers on the CD, but not sure if the dongle alone comes with these).
If you do have the driv
ers its just a case of using the high level Vis for both PDA and PC to communicate with each other as client and server.
If the PDA is the client you would set up this using the Open Connection VI and serial service UUID eg:
00001101-0000-1000-8000-00805f9b34fb
For the PC you'd make this the server and use the create listener VI with the above UUID then carry out a Wait on Listener function, and as soon as the other device comes into range you should be in business.
You can also use standard serial comms if you have a virtual port set up for the dongle, but timing can then become an issue. The native bluetooth VIs in LabVIEW take care of all that, and you don't need to set up a serial port in "My Bluetooth Places", as you effectively use the UUID which creates the serial port service you require.
Hope this helps but please drop a line if you have any more questions.
Cheers