Bluetooth signal booster/extender?

[espruino-discuss]

Posted at 2019-05-06 by d0773d

I came across this article while reading my morning tech news: https://www.zdnet.com/article/how-to-boost-your-bluetooth-signal-to-cover-your-entire-home-or-office/

Does anyone know if such a device would work with any of the bluetooth enabled espruino boards?

[gfwilliams]

Posted at 2019-05-07 by @gfwilliams

It looks like that one is specifically for Audio (so not Bluetooth LE). However I imagine a lot of what gives that the good range is just having a decent aerial on it.

It is possible to get Bluetooth USB dongles with decent aerials, however they seem particularly hard to come by. I just did a quick search and found:

https://www.alibaba.com/product-detail/Long-range-bluetooth-csr4-0-dongle_60822149411.html

And I've ordered one to have a play with - if it works I may start stocking them as they seem particularly rare.

Your other option is to go the EspruinoHub route and use Raspberry Pis to bridge the Bluetooth to WiFi/Ethernet. Currently it doesn't handle multiple Pis but that is on my To-do list :)

[espruino-discuss]

Posted at 2019-05-08 by Thinkscape

It depends on what you're trying to boost.
I wrote advertising data repeater that runs on another espruino board - it scans its surroundings and re-broadcasts what it found.

If you need connectable, I think it'd also be possible to establish multiple connections and stream the data through.

[gfwilliams]

Posted at 2019-05-14 by @gfwilliams

Just to add, I got the devices today, but despite using apparently the same CSR8510 A10 chip as Bluetooth dongles I have that work perfectly, it doesn't work in Linux or Mac OS, so it's not an 'out of the box' solution.

It may be something to do with it being in HID mode rather than HCI mode, but I'll have to wait until I hear from them to see what the issue is.

[gfwilliams]

Posted at 2019-10-08 by @gfwilliams

We're now selling a Long Range USB Bluetooth Dongle which should help increase range a bit for anyone looking for a bit of a boost. I got the factory to flash them with a different firmware that uses the HCI mode, so they're now plug and play on Linux (and still work fine on Windows).

On the Espruino side there's also now an MDBT42Q module you can add an external antenna to