Bluetooth modules.

[mookydooky]

What Bluetooth module do you guys use? Which ones are you the most happy with? My Dell laptop has a Widcomm one built into it and it works pretty well for me. I had another one by Ambicomm for my desktop, but I really didn't like the drivers or the software for it. I think with the release of SP2 for WinXP, there's now a Windows Bluetooth stack which you can use, but I haven't tried that yet. Let me know which Bluetooth modules you use and how satisfied you are with the drivers.

[Aedan]

Most of the Bluetooth dongles I have are CSR based, but I have a Broadcomm based one too. They're all driven by the Widcomm stack, which seems to work on the whole.

The Widcomm stack is the defacto standard for Bluetooth on Windows now, including PocketPC. Most of the Bluetooth dongles use either Broadcomm or CSR chipsets, so are actually remarkably alike. In this case, generally the driver is supplied by Widcomm, rather than the manufacturer.

The XP SP2 Bluetooth stack doesn't support as many Bluetooth profiles.

Just so you get a feel for it:

Widcomm supports the following profiles:

• Personal Area Networking. Allows for ethernet like connectivity
• Hard Copy Replacement. Allows printing
• Human Interface Device. Allows use of Bluetooth keyboards, mouse, joystick.
• Dial-Up Networking. Allows Dialup networking via Bluetooth.
• Object Push Profile. Allows OBEX transfers, such as individual contacts.
• Virtual COM ports. Allows Bluetooth serial ports.
• Audio Headset. Allows use of Bluetooth headsets.
• Audio Gateway. Allows use of Bluetooth headsets. Subtly different to the above.
• Fax. Allows Bluetooth devices to send faxes.
• PIM Sync. Allows PDA/Phone to synchronise contacts/diary/etc

Microsoft Bluetooth stack supports the following:

• Personal Area Networking. Allows for ethernet like connectivity
• Hard Copy Replacement. Allows printing
• Human Interface Device. Allows use of Bluetooth keyboards, mouse, joystick.
• Dial-Up Networking. Allows Dialup networking via Bluetooth.
• Object Push Profile. Allows OBEX transfers, such as individual contacts.
• Virtual COM ports. Allows Bluetooth serial ports.

[Razorfish]

Hi, thought id throw in a point of view, i have a USB bluetooth dongle by Origo, and i think its CSR based (like Áedán mentions, "well thats what XP says when i plug it in") So far its been great, i use it for my Nokia 6600 and i have no problems trying to connect to it< where ever i am in the house, except if its plugged directly into the back of the machine! The only problem i have is that the software seems to create far too many virual COM ports! But other than that its great!