Please Help me with some BlueTooth questions.

[iiicRules]

Firstly my apologies if some of these have already been answered.

1) Can you tell me please how well bluetooth reception works through walls/ceilings. So say I was accesing my PC from T3 using Bluetooth, and I was 10 metres away but through a wall would it work? I know the distance stated for Type 2 Bluetooth (used in the T's is 10M but want to know if, and by how much walls affect the distance.) I'm not talking about thick outside walls just thin indoor ones.

2) I want to get a really cheap £15-£20 dongle. Are there any to avoid? Any recommendations? And is it possible to use any old Bluetooth dongle? I don't need a specific one to work with my T3 do I?

3)Is there any software that would allow me to access files on my pc hard disk via bluetooth on my Palm? So I could copy a word file or ogg file over without using the pc? I think MMPlayer will allow me to stream oggs over a network soon hopefully!

4) Internet Access via bluetooth. Do I need any special software for this? Are there instructions on how to set this up?

Many thanks in advance,
iiicRuled

[ryber]

1) I haven't noticed any difference in reception regarding walls.

2) Belkin makes a great model (F8T001) that I picked up for about $30.00 USD

3) I haven't been able to get that to work yet, but if it's absolutely necessary to not use the PC, you could use PalmVNC to get to your computer, set the files up to hotsync, and then use a bluetooth Hotsync. It would take an enourmous amount of time compared to setting the Palm in the cradle and hotsyncing that way, but it can be done.

4) You don't need any special software, as long as the model you buy has a built in browser. This (http://www.whizoo.com/bt_setup/) ought to help you get set up with BT Internet via your PC.

[iiicRules]

Many thanks for reply. The setup guide seems brilliant so thanks for the link.
From what I can gather, he implies that if you have a bluetooth dongle with a very sensitive reciver, you can actually have 2 way communication between Palm and PC at up to 30 metres. So some recievers are better than others.. How far do you think you can use Bluetooth away from your PC, please? (Just an estimate..)

This may seem a silly question, but say you were having information streamed over the network to your Palm, like internet radio maybe (using the latest Pocket Tunes beta), could you recieve this at the full 100M transmit range of the PC, or does it HAVE to have a 2-way communication established all the time for it to work?

In regards to my 3rd original question, I agree with you it would be a lot of hassle to use VNC to setup a BT hotsync with the file. I was wondering if there was just a piece of software that allowed you to access all the files on the PC, like a Palm version of My Computer that browses the files on a network and allows copying etc... Hopefully there will be some software like that soon I sure it would be possible and very useful...

Thanks again for your help.
iiicRuled

[ryber]

I haven't been able to get an internet connection at more than maybe 10-15 meters, although, the BT Dongle I use is supposed to work for 100 meters. I really believe this is a limitation of the T|T3, and not a problem on the PC end.

As for your second question, I really couldn't tell you, not having any experience with that yet. My first thought, though, is that you would have to have two way communication for it to work.

As for the third question, I haven't tried the software, but SerialGo (http://www.palmgear.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=software.showsoftware&prodID=46453) might be able to use the BT serial connection to accomplish this, although it doesn't look like a very easy way to go about it either.

[iiicRules]

Thanks again for the replies. Yes, the distance limitation is with the Palm- the palms bluetooth class only supposedly allows 10M range. I was interested though beacuse in the BT setup guide, the guy was using a dongle identical to yours and he reports that because the Belkin dongle not only has a very powerful transmitter but an extremely sensetive reciever, despite the palm only being rated at 10M, he could communicate at up to 30M.
In terms of range, Palm's are typically "class 3" Bluetooth devices with a range of around 10 meters (33 feet), with 1 mW (0 dBm) of transmit power. Cell phones are also typically class 3 devices. Bluetooth Access Points and most USB Bluetooth dongles have an "unlimited" power source so they tend to be class 1 devices, with 100 mW (20 dBm) of transmit power. In addition to their powerful transmitters, Access Points and USB dongles tend to have very sensitive receivers so class 3 devices (like Palms) can connect at up to 30 meters (100 feet) from an Access Point.
Breaking range down into transmit and receive:

Access Point to handheld: The class 1 transmitter in the Access Point is clearly capable of transmitting a strong signal over a large distance. This should not be the limiting factor in determining the range.
Handheld to Access Point: The handheld transmits a weak (class 3) signal. The range will be greater if the Access Point has a good antenna and a very sensitive receiver. Very sensitive receivers typically cost more.



Anyway thanks again for all your help. I'm pretty sure I'll look into get a dongle like yours.
iiicRuled