Fun with Logitech bluetooth keyboard (diNovo Edge)...

[Maksim Yevmenkin]

On Wed, May 7, 2008 at 10:24 AM, Alexander Leidinger
<Alexander at leidinger.net> wrote:
> Hi,
>
>  I bought a keyboard with an integrated touchpad from logitech. Just
>  plugging in the BT-dongle gives an usb hub with ums and ukbd.
>  Unfortunately the ums doesn't work for me yet (problem in a separate
>  mail to usb@).
>
>  I googled a litte bit around and found a posting here
>  (http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/htdig/freebsd-bluetooth/2006-December/000824.html)
>  which contains a program which puts the device into hci mode (by
>  accessing /dev/uhidX), so that I can use the HID devices with the
>  FreeBSD bluetooth stack directly. I haven't tried this yet (I would
>  have to remove ukbd and ums from the kernel...).
>
>  Is there the possibility to get this hid2hci feature in our userland
>  (or into the kernel controllable via a sysctl)? I would would be good
>  to have this functionality at boot (in the kernel it would would allow
>  to have ukbd available while still being able to put the device into
>  hci mode).

well, someone already ported hid2hci.

http://lists.freebsd.org/pipermail/freebsd-bluetooth/2007-July/000989.html

is a good starting point. i do not think that using sysctl is good
solution for this. last time i looked this stuff was implemented on
csr chips using so-called "boot mode" feature. basically, the device
has a split personality - in one mode it pretends to be an usb hub
with keyboard and mouse attached (hid) to it and in another -
bluetooth dongle (hci). to switch between the modes one must set a
so-called ps key and perform warm reset.

the problems are

1) this is highly device specific

2) there is no  good way to know if device can be switched between hid
and hci. it is basically left to user to know that.

3) usually hid mode is made default, so device has to be switched into
hci mode every time it is attached.

the hid mode is really for user's advantage. its makes it possible to
use wireless keyboards in bios screens etc. os does not need to know
anything about bluetooth. all that is required from the os is usb
support. while i do not object to hid2hci utility, personally, i would
get a separate bluetooth dongle for another $20 or less.

thanks,
max