Development build 6 of RMIR v2.07 is now available in the
RMIR Development folder. It provides two new ways for Windows users to access the Bluetooth capabilities of RMIR, without the need for the Bluegiga BLED112 dongle.
THE ACCESS METHODS
To help understand these new ways, here is a brief outline of how RMIR works with Bluetooth. It makes use of three layers beneath RMIR. Layer 1, the lowest, is the physical layer that includes the Bluetooth radio hardware and a standardized interface to layer 2 above. Layer 2 is the Bluetooth stack that implements the Bluetooth protocol. Layer 3 is a library that provides the API (application programming interface) to RMIR or any other application. The interfaces of layers 2 and 3 to the layer above are not standardized.
The Bluegiga BLED112 dongle includes layers 1 and 2. It appears to the computer as a virtual serial port. The Bluegiga library of level 3 is incorporated into the RemoteMaster.jar file. This combination works with all OS supported by RMIR.
This new build of RMIR uses in addition the
Bluetooth Framework of the Wireless Communication Library (WCL). This layer 3 library is included as dlls in the RMIR distribution. It supports two layer 2 Bluetooth stacks, the Microsoft stack that is part of Windows 10 and the
Blue Soleil stack that is available as an installable download. Blue Soleil 10, the latest version, currently costs US $27.99. The WCL website also mentions support of a Toshiba stack and of the Microsoft stack for Windows versions earlier than Windows 10, but these stacks do not have the facilities required by RMIR. The Blue Soleil website says that it supports all versions of Windows from Windows XP onwards. All I can confirm from personal experience is that the combination of Windows 8.1 and Blue Soleil does work with this new build of RMIR, but this itself is a significant improvement over the Microsoft stack.
What about layer 1 for these Bluetooth stacks? Many computers, especially laptops, have Bluetooth hardware built in. If so, both the Microsoft and Blue Soleil stacks will find and use this hardware without anything extra needing to be done. You need to be careful, however, as the remotes that support Bluetooth use Bluetooth Low Energy, which is part of the Bluetooth 4 specification and may not be supported by the built-in hardware of older machines. If Bluetooth hardware is not built in, then any standard Bluetooth dongle should work, provided that it supports Bluetooth 4. My Windows 8.1 + Blue Soleil combination, however, does work with its built-in hardware.
Finally a word of warning. There is evidence on the web that not all Windows computers will work with Blue Soleil even when they are nominally compatible with it. Also, our testing has found that there are Windows 10 machines where Bluetooth fails to connect to the remote when RMIR is used with the Microsoft stack. So nothing is guaranteed, though no harm will be done by trying. Blue Soleil can be uninstalled if required, and failure of the remote to connect via Bluetooth does no harm to either the remote or RMIR installation.
USING THE NEW METHODS
The introduction to this post mentions two new access methods. The "two" refers to use with the Microsoft and Blue Soleil stacks. The use of RMIR is the same for both stacks, but the initial preparation required is different in the two cases. Both stacks need an extender installed in the remote. The extender takes up no space in the user memory of the remote. An extender installer is uploaded to the remote, used once to perform the installation and then discarded.
The Blue Soleil stack needs version 1.00 of the extender, exactly the same as that for the Bluegiga dongle. The Microsoft stack needs version 2.00. Version 2.00 is supplied as a .rmir file and needs a JP1.x cable for its installation, version 1.00 is a .hex file that is installed via Bluetooth itself and so does not need a cable. Version 2.00 can be used where version 1.00 is required, but not the other way round. Both extenders are available for both the URC7980 and URC7955 and are in the
Extenders - Bluetooth area of the File Section. Full instructions are in the ReadMe included in the extender package. The ReadMe for Version 2.00 also covers version 1.00 and includes more details of the purpose of, and differences between, the two versions.
As with the Bluegiga BLED112 dongle, the Bluetooth interface is accessed through the Remote > Interface menu of RMIR. Select the JP2BT item. The list of available ports in the dialog box that opens should then include "Windows WCL" in addition to any serial ports that may be present on the machine. Select this port and press OK. Everything else is the same as for the Bluegiga dongle, as described in the first three posts in this thread. Please see those posts for more details.
There is one difference in behaviour between the Blue Soleil stack and either the Microsoft stack or the Bluegiga dongle that should be noted. If a key on the remote is pressed while Bluetooth is connected, it terminates the Bluetooth connection. The Blue Soleil stack automatically reconnects but the other two methods accept the disconnection and RMIR displays a message to say that the connection has been terminated. Blue Soleil automatic reconnection even extends to removal and reinsertion of the batteries, so the batteries can be changed without losing the connection. So with the Blue Soleil stack, the only way to terminate the connection is from RMIR, by pressing the Bluetooth toolbar button or simply closing RMIR.
