Bridging multiple tablets with bluetooth?
 

Ok, this is a shot in the dark, but would there be a way to bridge several tablets together to play multiplayer games, and if so, which games could take advantage of a setup like this? Just curious.

Re: Bridging multiple tablets with bluetooth?
 

Does it have to be Bluetooth, should be possible to implement with zeroconf and wifi

Re: Bridging multiple tablets with bluetooth?
 

yes, the bluetooth PAN (personal area network) profile is exactly for this. you can connect up to 7 devices. One is master and six other can join. There is no UI for this but the functionality is there. It can be programatically created by d-bus calls. see http://wiki.bluez.org/wiki/Network

Re: Bridging multiple tablets with bluetooth?
 

Ok, someone, make it happen!*

Please?

* I mean, please put together a graphical thingy that will handle the dbus calls...

In fact, if someone tells me what the dbus calls are to do the following, I could whip up a GUI using qwerty12's tiny Zenity port:

• list bluetooth devices, preferably devices that are set up to be "master" or "server" of a BT-PAN
• request a connection to a "master" bluetooth device as a "client" (using name or ID from the list above) using BT-PAN
• become a "master" of a BT-PAN network
• accept an incoming request from a "client"

Re: Bridging multiple tablets with bluetooth?
 

Oh, well, yeah, that'll work. :D

Now, are there any network games that could be played between tablets?

Re: Bridging multiple tablets with bluetooth?
 

From http://bluez.sourceforge.net/contrib/HOWTO-PAN:

(If my understanding is correct, below has you searching as a client for "Group ad-hoc Network (GN) controllers" - I think GN is the correct one - makes more sense than "Network Access Point (NAP)" on a tablet)
You'll need bluez-utils-test installed to use pand.

Connecting is:
I'm not the best of scripters so maybe you could get the list of GN's outputted and then use read? (Hoping there's an easier way and just remembering you're using zenity >.<, well "zenity --entry" then? :))

(bnep module is said to be needed - not true, checked nokia_2420_defconfig and it's built into kernel)

But it does say that /etc/bluetooth/hcid.conf has to be edited to have the N800 being a "master" on its outgoing connections.

Re: Bridging multiple tablets with bluetooth?
 

syntax usable from shell is here
https://garage.maemo.org/plugins/scm...an&view=markup
the rest is reading bluez wiki

this is tricky from shell to do via dbus as the discovery is asynchronous and you need to listen to events to get the list. I've made such scan as part of kbdd.tar.gz on my site (dbus-bluez-scan), it was written in Vala (just copied some example). or sdptool is solution too but it is not preinstalled on the tablet


These three are doable, last two are same thing - start network service, first is connect as client, boh parts are in maemo-pan script linked above.

Additional thing is to decide which IP adresses to use, either hardcode them or autogenerate (from some part of server name? 10.x.x.x is private network with many variants) or run dhcp on server/master side.

Re: Bridging multiple tablets with bluetooth?
 

How i wish I knew the things that Fanoush knows.....:p

This is pretty sweet tho. Its stuff like this that makes the n810 so cool. People are like, hey can we do this, and the answer is pretty often yes, its just a matter of time and energy.

@Qole, how goes the gui?

@fanoush - you should set up online classes. you would get less pm's im sure (teach a man to fish yadda yadda)

Cruelkix

Re: Bridging multiple tablets with bluetooth?
 

lol. I'm sitting here watching my brain cells smoke reading all the stuff you need to do to make this work. So I think I'll just wait until someone builds an app that'll uber simplify this, just like USB control did for usb devices. ^_^;;

Re: Bridging multiple tablets with bluetooth?
 

I'm with you Raiden. At least you seem to have gotten the ball rolling, this is some potentially great functionality.

Re: Bridging multiple tablets with bluetooth?
 

Only one problem, who are you going to play with? Personally, I only know one other person with a n810 and another with a 770. That's it. And they both moved.

Second, what games? zeroconf and WiFi seem better because many games already have TCP/IP support. But w/e, if you do know a lot of people with tablets, then this is cool.

Re: Bridging multiple tablets with bluetooth?
 

I don't personally know anyone else with an NIT either. However, I think there are opportunities beyond just gaming here. The ability to easily create/manage a bluetooth PAN would be great, it's not like it has to be with other NITs.

I think you're right about gaming though, there isn't much support in existing games for something like this, and the NITs are such a niche product that most people won't personally know too many other users.

Re: Bridging multiple tablets with bluetooth?
 

One of the best things about this is that once you've established a BT PAN network, the clients can surf the net thru someone else's connection.

Re: Bridging multiple tablets with bluetooth?
 

Ooooooh. That would be nice.