Bluetooth & HotSync & Blazer

[The Palmster]

I've now had my Tungsten T5 for three days and, in general, am VERY content with the product thus far. I've loaded quite a lot of applications and intend to post to Lance's compatibility list within a week or so once I feel confident enough.

My present query, however, has to do with Bluetooth and HotSync & Blazer.

I've set up my bluetooth adapter (A Belkin F8T001) to my PC. Although I have all of the connections finally right (thanks in large part to Whizoo.com: A donation is on its way to Dean Johnson for his great tutorial on bluetooth installations!) the HotSync freezes in mid-stream and Blazer is EXTREMELY slow.

Is this normal operation for bluetooth? If so, I query whether all the talk about wireless handhelds is a waste of time. I don't think I could ever surf the net at this speed and the hotsync is pretty much useless as it is unreliable.

Any thoughts or helpful suggestions?

[applejosh]

My bluetooth net connection was slow for my T3. I then bought an extender usb cable to move the key farther away from my workstation (just 3 ft.) and throughput increased dramatically. I haven't tested with Blazer; I've only used WebPro.

What does

http://www.dslreports.com/mspeed

say your speed is? (I had to disable the proxy server in WebPro to get real throughput results.) Before the extender cable, I was averaging 20-25 kbps. Afterwards, I usually get 75-100 kbps. Still quite below what I'd get with wifi on my NX, but a vast improvement and good enough for email fetching from the couch.

Sorry, I can't help with HotSync. I never really tried to HotSync via BT because I'm used to the fast USB connection for that.

Edit: Let me add that BT would be great if I had a BT enabled phone and was out in the middle of nowhere, away from a wifi AP (but I don't have BT phone, and I don't get out much). But otherwise, I personally don't have much use for it and would prefer wifi.

[The Palmster]

Holy Cow, I'm only registering 9-10 kbit/sec!

I'll try the extender cable but any other suggestions?

[The Palmster]

Thank you Applejosh! I switched USB ports and my score is now 75. EVERYTHING is now working much better. My full report to follow on the T5.

[William1]

My bluetooth net connection was slow for my T3. I then bought an extender usb cable to move the key farther away from my workstation (just 3 ft.) and throughput increased dramatically. I haven't tested with Blazer; I've only used WebPro.

What does

http://www.dslreports.com/mspeed

say your speed is? (I had to disable the proxy server in WebPro to get real throughput results.) Before the extender cable, I was averaging 20-25 kbps. Afterwards, I usually get 75-100 kbps. Still quite below what I'd get with wifi on my NX, but a vast improvement and good enough for email fetching from the couch.

Sorry, I can't help with HotSync. I never really tried to HotSync via BT because I'm used to the fast USB connection for that.

Edit: Let me add that BT would be great if I had a BT enabled phone and was out in the middle of nowhere, away from a wifi AP (but I don't have BT phone, and I don't get out much). But otherwise, I personally don't have much use for it and would prefer wifi.

Thanks for the website tip. I tested my connection speed using my BT-enabled Siemens S56 and the T5. The speed test showed, for a 50K download, the speed was 24 kbit/sec, with 4.464 sec latency and 21.093 sec download time. With this performance, one has to disable image downloading in Blazer, and likely stick as much as possible to sites like mobile.palmone.com

[TomP]

You might find that the problem is in the flow control of the fake serial connection that you're usuing over bluetooth.

When data's coming too fast over the link the palm sends a command to say "woah there buddy" but over bluetooth this gets a bit screwed up because this system was designed for real wired serial connections.

<b>I would recomend switching flow control to "OFF" under Prefs->Connection->Details on the Palm. </b>(Bluetooth actually has it's own method of flow control)

Note: Lots of people report that this "stalling" or "freezing" can be fixed by setting the baud rate to a low speed such as 19200 - this often does fix the symptom as now the data never comes to fast, but it doesn't actual fix the problem and results in even slower connections!

Let me know if it works!

Tom.

[The Palmster]

Setting my Flow Control to "Off" seems to slow down the connection. Setting the Speed to 115,200 bps caused my readings to go up by 15 to 45. The earlier "75" score has not been reproduced. I am now at 45-47. Still haven't tried the USB extension cable idea. Think I might pick an extension cable up this weekend and try it out.

[The Palmster]

UNBELIEVABLE!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Connected my Belkin F8T001 to a Belkin USB 6' extension cable and my Palm is now registering at a speed of 133kbit/sec!!!!! Thanks again Applejosh.

[applejosh]

That's awesome, Palmster. I was kind of floored myself when I added that and watched my throughput triple (my personal experience). Glad to hear it worked for you as well. (I only have a 3 ft extension; maybe I should try a 6'.)

[The Palmster]

Really makes you wonder why bluetooth adapters are being shipped without extension cables to begin with. I guess it's just another way to tempt the consumer into buying yet another accessory!

[applejosh]

I used to work at a computer place, and that's where they make their money. The computer systems themselves either have very little markup (generally less than 3%) or are priced below cost just to get people in the door to buy accessories. Cables are generally extremely high markup items. (Some cables we had were supposedly marked up 300% or more. I really don't know for certain since I was not privy to the financials of the company.)

[STBXXL]

Same here. Just managed to setup my BT to LAN network with a Belkin F8T001 dongle and a 3 ft. cable. I'm reading 130 kbit/s. :D Even through a wall! In about 20 ft. distance through two walls I still get 90-100. I also noticed that it makes quite a difference whether you use a 100k or a 200k file on the speed test site. :cool:

Cheers.