How to create a wireless keyboard with the BlueSMIRF Silver

Wireless & IoT
1

Hi,

I’ve got a BlueSMIRF Silver (RN-42) Bluetooth module.

I am trying to create a basic keyboard I can play with on an iPad Air.

At the moment barely manage to get the module to pair with OSX

but only through using Bluetooth Setup Assistant and using “Passcode Options…use a specific code”.

With this, the module pairs, but the connection resets about every 5 seconds.

On iPad it tries to use a generate number really fast and fails straight away, being unable to connect.

I noticed there is a BlueSMIRF HID version, but from what I can tell, the hardware is the same,

just the firmware is different. I’ve gone through the whole "Bluetooth Data Module Command

Reference & Advanced Information User’s Guide" manual and from what I can gather,

even though I have Silver firmware burned onto my module, I should be able to set and use the HID profile

(from the default SPP):

Roving Networks modules shipped with firmware version 6.11 and higher

support the HID profile. You do not need special firmware if your module is

running firmware 6.11 or higher.

and my module reports version as:

Ver 6.15 04/26/2013
(c) Roving Networks

I’ve also gone through the “Bluetooth HID Profile” guide from Roving Networks, but the same

information is present in Chapter 5 of the advanced user’s guide mentioned above.

I’ve setup the following settings (with commands used):

  • HID Profile (``` S~,6 ```)

    Device discovery and pairing is set to automatic, without using GPIO6(```
    SM,6

    
HID Flag is set to Keyboard (<QUOTE>

> SH,0000

</QUOTE>)

Authentication is set to open (<QUOTE>

> SA,0

</QUOTE>)</LI>
</LIST>

I've also tried the inquiry scan(SI,0800) and page scan(SJ,0800) windows to maximum 

in the hope it would increase the odds of successful pairing.

I have used the same module with the SPP profile just fine, but I'm still fairly new to Bluetooth

and this is the first time I try to use the HID profile.

How can I use the BlueSMIRF Silver as a basic Bluetooth Keyboard for an iPad Air ?
    • 2

    This has been answered here:

    http://arduino.stackexchange.com/questi … ard-on-ios

    The gist is that it’s not possible to use the Silver BlueSMIRF as an HID device(regardless of the firmware version).

    In theory it might be possible to rip the HID firmware from an HID device and clone it to a Silver, but it feels

    pretty hacky and long route.

    3

    This reply indicates Silver supports both HID and SPP.

    https://www.sparkfun.com/products/10938 … a4608b4567

    What about if you use SA,1 or SA,2 instead of SA,0?

    I don’t have Silver but I could connect to iOS using bare module with 6.15 firmware got from other supplier. I used config like:

    SF,1
SM,4
SW,8000
S~,6
SH,003C
R,1