Application for Bluetooth PAN tethering -- now for charity - Nook Color Android Development

The ad revenue from this app has passed the $25 mark -- what it cost me to register with Google to put the app in the market. As promised, any revenue the app earns from that point forward will be added to my annual donation to the Baypath Humane Society of Hopkinton, Massachusetts -- a no-kill shelter.
Thanks from me and thanks from the kittens and puppies.
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I've written a widget to establish a PAN connection between the Nook a phone. It grabs the first networking-capable device it finds in the list of pairings. A couple of things to note:
There is an application. All it will do is show you what device, if any, it can connect to. It has to turn on Bluetooth to get the list, but it will politely ask you before doing so.
The widget will turn on Bluetooth, but it isn't so polite. For the life of me, I can't find a code snippet nor can I think of one that will start the polite activity (or any activity) from a widget that doesn't directly involve a button press. If anyone has such a snippet, I'd love to see it. I know its possible because the Bluetooth GPS widget does it. Fixed!
The widget, of course, requires root.
I do send a Toast when the process is complete, but toast from my widget isn't reliable. I need to figure that out, too... advice is welcome. Fixed!
Still to do: Monitor the connection and reflect the status in the widget. Fixed!
If nothing else, it's prettier than a GSCript script. Once it's stable and complete, I'll stick it in the marketplace.
Note... You must be running CM7 and you must have already paired the phone before you can use this....
Apr-13: New version with better Bluetooth device state management.
Apr-17: Added connection monitoring, polite Bluetooth enabling
Note: The pop-up to grant superuser access is asynchronous, so there may be a timing window on first use where state is not correctly monitored. I'll try to work that out, but in the meantime, all subsequent uses should work.
The icon will display a yellow LED during the connection process and a green one once the connection is going.
If a connection could not be established, the LED may go briefly green, then turn off. The challenge is that the only way I can monitor the connection is with "pand -l" or "ifconfig bnep0" and if the connection is gone, the attempt to read the result from those commands simply hangs. So, I start a thread and then periodically run "pand -l". A different thread monitors the first and, if it looks stuck, I kill the process and turn off the LED. But, until I can be sure it's really stuck and not just taking time to answer, the LED will be green. Fixed!
Obviously, once the connection is broken, the LED will go off.
Since I have the LED, I've taken out most of the toast, though some still comes from the OS.
Apr-19 Fixed the widget graphics so the LED turns off instead of disappearing. Fixed the green-before-failed connection status issue. Added a proper toggle -- if the connection is off, tapping the widget turns it on and if the connection is on, tapping the widget turns it off.
Apr-20 The official version is now in the Market:
https://market.android.com/details?id=earlmagnus.nctether
May-27 Fixed a null pointer issue discovered by Ophbalance
As always, feedback is welcome.

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Could you accomplish the blue tooth polite toggle with a conditional method?
Check blue tooth status,
if off, direct user to settings-> blue tooth
I know thats not as cool as a nice button press
Downloadin ur app now!

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One other oddness...
... Android doesn't seem to think the tethered connection is worthy of note. If you start the browser after being connected, you'll be told you have no connection. Pages will load perfectly well, anyway.

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sinanju said:
... Android doesn't seem to think the tethered connection is worthy of note. If you start the browser after being connected, you'll be told you have no connection. Pages will load perfectly well, anyway.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm pretty sure it's because Android does not natively have bluetooth DUN capabilities, at least input-wise; it's based on functions within custom kernels, and therefore the system does not recognize it as a connection capable of fueling GApps.
But I could be completely wrong / that information could be outdated; this is from my research into Bluetooth DUN for my Nook when I first got it a while ago, and I'm not much of a developer. I'd more call myself someone who likes dabbling with code, and watching everything break.
But back to this post's point: thank you so much, you are a god. I've been looking for an easier way to do this for so damn long.
Kudos, sir. Kudos.

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This is very promising! Now, what is the feasibility of adding Bluetooth DUN support? A number of phones out there (to include Blackberries) do not support PAN. I've done a lot of googling and have come across one resource, which may or may not be useful: https://github.com/wertarbyte/android_vendor_cyanogen/blob/omni-tether/prebuilt/common/bin/tether
The "pand" binary is included with the CM7 ROM, but "dund" is not. How much effort would be involved in adding this functionality?
Thanks in advance and appreciate any guidance..

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exactly what i was looking for.
Thanks a lot for this. Will be installing and tethering to my iphone via mywii
I will report back with results.

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anonim1 said:
This is very promising! Now, what is the feasibility of adding Bluetooth DUN support? A number of phones out there (to include Blackberries) do not support PAN. I've done a lot of googling and have come across one resource, which may or may not be useful: https://github.com/wertarbyte/android_vendor_cyanogen/blob/omni-tether/prebuilt/common/bin/tether
The "pand" binary is included with the CM7 ROM, but "dund" is not. How much effort would be involved in adding this functionality?
Thanks in advance and appreciate any guidance..
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
DUN is in a whole different ballpark. I don't know what's involved.

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Thanks, folks, for trying it out. I have an idea for monitoring connection status, but other than some POC work, I probably won't get to it before the weekend.

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It doesn't work for me, it says tethering then tethered and then starts tethring again and this goes on quite sm time and then the internet doesn't work, i really needed this:-(
am running pherimod 5.3 and trying to tether with sony erricsion's k530i which has bluetooth networking.

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rigy73 said:
It doesn't work for me, it says tethering then tethered and then starts tethring again and this goes on quite sm time and then the internet doesn't work, i really needed this:-(
am running pherimod 5.3 and trying to tether with sony erricsion's k530i which has bluetooth networking.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Does the application show the the phone and its BT address?
Is there a particular app you have to start on the phone before you begin tethering and, if so, does it show status if a link is established?
EDIT: Also... have you used the phone for tethering before with a laptop? Do you know tethering should work?
For the life of me, I can't think of anything that would make it loop through connection attempts other than mashing the widget repeatedly.

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sinanju said:
Does the application show the the phone and its BT address?
Is there a particular app you have to start on the phone before you begin tethering and, if so, does it show status if a link is established?
EDIT: Also... have you used the phone for tethering before with a laptop? Do you know tethering should work?
For the life of me, I can't think of anything that would make it loop through connection attempts other than mashing the icon repeatedly.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes phone and address are both shown, i start tethring by taping the widget and as for the status i see nothng xcpt bluetooth icon, which shows that both the devices are connected. But am trying this with a gprs connection. i havent tried 3g yet, will that be any different?
Yes the phone has bluetooth tethring, the pc suite has a module for bluetooth internet.

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I've attached a new version in the OP. Have a try.
I've improved managing the Bluetooth device. Final state of the connection still isn't reported... that will have to wait.
I would remove the widget and uninstall the old app before installing the new version.

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Hm... pand --nodetach doesn't do what I hoped it would in a --connect context... So much for that idea.

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I'm trying to use this app to tether my nook to my moto Droid. When I tap the widget it says there's no paired PAN device. I've tethered these two before using the pand command, so I know it's possible. Am I doing something wrong? The droid and nook are "paired but not connected", but every Bluetooth device has said that.
Sent from my NookColor using Tapatalk

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Calla969 said:
I'm trying to use this app to tether my nook to my moto Droid. When I tap the widget it says there's no paired PAN device. I've tethered these two before using the pand command, so I know it's possible. Am I doing something wrong? The droid and nook are "paired but not connected", but every Bluetooth device has said that.
Sent from my NookColor using Tapatalk
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
They were probably paired while the droid wasn't advertising the profile. I rely on the list of paired devices knowing which is the network provider.
Try this:
- Remove the Droid from the list of paired devices on the Nook
- Enable visibility on the Droid
- Get the Droid ready for a PAN connection
- Then, from the Nook, initiate pairing
That should ensure the Nook sees the Droid can provide a network connection.

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Now I just need my phone to just advertise the bluetooth network without having to run wifi tether.

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painter_ said:
Now I just need my phone to just advertise the bluetooth network without having to run wifi tether.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Nothing WiFi related will help you.
My WinMo 6.5 phone just shows a list of nearly a dozen profiles it supports, PAN being one of them. My suggesting about getting the phone ready for PAN before pairing came from my experience setting up my Ubuntu system as a tethering client. Both that and the Nook recognized the PAN profile when I did that.

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The only app I could find that supports bluetooth tethering and is reliable on my HTC Hero is wifi tether set up in bluetooth mode. I have been using it for over a year with my netbook.
What would make the bluetooth tethering the cat's ass would be to not to have to start anything on the phone, for the connection to always be available so i could just wip out the nook and be able to use the data connection.

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painter_ said:
The only app I could find that supports bluetooth tethering and is reliable on my HTC Hero is wifi tether set up in bluetooth mode. I have been using it for over a year with my netbook.
What would make the bluetooth tethering the cat's ass would be to not to have to start anything on the phone, for the connection to always be available so i could just wip out the nook and be able to use the data connection.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Can't help you there... that's up to the phone.
In my case, it's an HTC Topaz and I have to start an app on that, too...

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I am happy to report it works well with mywii running on my iphone and tethering from the nook.
Did not have any issues at all. And yes, i did have to hold my iphone the right way