I have a very simple question that hopefully someone on here should be able to answer.

Where can I get a bluetooth dongle that actually works with the 32feet bluetooth library?

I have a Belkin F8T012 one, which even when using the fix in the library here to get it working using the MS Stack, isn't detected by the library.  I've tried it on 3 machines, none of which work.

I also have a cheap Safecom dongle, that I've managed to get the 32feet library to recognise (using the same sort of hack as should have worked for the Belkin one), but it only offers a very limited number of services (no file transfer, which is mainly what I'm after).

Thanks

Bluetooth hardware doesn't provide an services apart from shifting bits (etc).  OBEX servers, printing servers, DUN servers etc are all provided by software.  The MSFT Bluetooth stack software by default listens on the PANU service, and provides OBEX Push with the "Bluetooth File Transfer Wizard" which one runs manually and select 'Receive'.  The Widcomm software support a lot more services, and has them running all the time.  Of course both 32feet.NET and the Brecham.Obex library from this site provide OBEX client and server support if you want to write an application to do file transfer etc.

 Thanks Alan, I think I'm following that.

 So going by what you've said, if I can get my cheap USB dongle to work 'correctly' using the MS stack (which to be honest, I thought I had), then there's no reason I can't use it to develop a file transfer or messaging system to transfer from PC to mobile.

The bit that I don't understand (and no, I'm not after an answer to this bit, it's probably specific to me) is how I can get both dongles apparently working using the MS stack, and yet they both offer different services.

The first paragraph is entirely correct.  Just create BluetoothListener with the correct UUID, and optional with a manually created SDP record if required, and you've added that service endpoint, then just implement the protocol...  (Again if OBEX then both libraries have support, Brecham.Obex being more complete and extensible -- see the 'server' downloads).

On the second paragraph, I'm surprised.  I think all I said before is correct.  Perhaps the 'driver' install for one of the dongle installed some applications too.  Or...  How did you detect the different services.  Using SdpBrowser from the new release perhaps?  Or the Windows' Bluetooth Device property sheets?

It was using the Windows Bluetooth Device property sheets.  Also, when the dongle is plugged into the computer, using a different bluetooth device (mobile phone or other bluetooth integrated computer) to browse the available services.

I didn't have chance last week, but I'll give it another go, see if I was doing something stupid.

Thanks for the help.
 

OK.  I'd be interested to hear if there is some different and I've misunderstood how it all works. :-)