Hi all,
Using an RTK Facet, and it is sweet!
Quick question / feature request?
Right now I am feeding the NMEA message from the Facet to my Linux PC with a usb cable. Is it possible to instead do this with just bluetooth?
Yes. NMEA is transmitted over Bluetooth by default. This is how we connect to the various GIS softwares.
Connect via Bluetooth (use a USB dongle if your PC doesn’t have Bluetooth built in) then open a terminal window on the COM Port the the Bluetooth device creates and you should see NMEA scrolling through.
Yeah, I guess that’s where I’m confused. I’m not sure how to access the Bluetooth port. For example, If I connect the GPS via USB cable I can access the data via: /dev/ttyUSB0
Is there a similar method to access the Bluetooth data, something like /dev/bluethoothport?
Yes. If you purchase a Bluetooth v2.0 dongle that is capable of SPP (serial port profile - almost all older BT dongles support it) new COM ports will be installed when the Bluetooth dongle is detected. Open one of these ports and it will connect to your RTK device.
Okay, thanks. If possible I’d prefer not to consume a USB, any thoughts for using the onboard Bluetooth?
If your computer has built-in Bluetooth it will also work.
Yeah, I’m using my built in Bluetooth but I can’t seem to find where the data is streaming to / I have no clue how to access it. After pairing the device in the Bluetooth settings there is a greyed out option for “connection”, however it won’t let me click the button. I’m guessing that perhaps I don’t have any change in ports in /dev/ when turning on and off Bluetooth because the connection is not initialized?
Ubuntu 20.04 LTS
I apologize, my knowledge is limited to Windows. Under windows, once Bluetooth is enabled, two COM ports are created. Connecting to one of these COM ports via a terminal program will allow NMEA data to be received.
Your best bet would likely be StackExchange (‘using bluetooth com ports under linux’: https://unix.stackexchange.com/question … t-on-linux) covering similar topics.
Thanks, I had seen that link before but I combed over it again and found something helpful hidden in one of the bottom comments.
Following these instructions I got it working:
http://www.userk.co.uk/arduino-bluetooth-linux/
Then I made a bash script that runs at boot connects to and starts streaming the data to port /dev/rfcomm0.
Success! Nice work and thanks for reporting the fix.
Was this device designed to be able to connect to an NTRIP server with WIFI via the info saved to the device AND stream via Bluetooth?
It appears that when I am connected to WIFI via the devices’ config, I cannot connect to the device via Bluetooth.
Yes - Starting at Firmware v2.4 and later WiFi and Bluetooth can operate simultaneously: https://github.com/sparkfun/SparkFun_RT … e/releases