Use android device as remote for the WII

I've only tested with a rooted Droid. Radu Motisan was helping me out over on [www.pocketmagic.net] and was testing with a G1. I don't recall which device rikmer was using. I've heard that HTC devices have poor bluetooth implementations, that's too bad. Maybe 2.3 will fix them as well.

By the way, did you ever find information about alternative wii accessories, like the Nyko wand?
[i.gizmodo.com]

i'm eager to know what this one uses as VID,PID and device name....Nintendo RVL-CNT-01? :D

Hi guys,

I do have Android 2.3 "Gingerbread" on my HTC Desire now. So if there is some kind of test program available which tries to bind the L2CAP sockets I am ready to give it a try. I am very occupied at the moment, so I wont be able to participate as much as I like to, but I will try to find some time.
Hopefully "Gingerbread" did the trick for us.

BR

Great news :)
I just got my ZTE Blade /Orange San Francisco, it's currently running 2.1, I'm waiting for a release with 2.3 where I can use this phone for phone calls ;)
But I've got good news too: it seams ZTE used the normal bluetooth implementation and didn't mess it up like HTC did.

Hi all,
Did anybody try to connect using the NDK like in WiimoteController?

Just found this, but it's about 3.0:

[android-developers.blogspot.com]

Quote

New types of connectivity: New APIs for Bluetooth A2DP and HSP let applications offer audio streaming and headset control. Support for Bluetooth insecure socket connection lets applications connect to simple devices that may not have a user interface.

Isn't this what we need?
Hopefully this API will come to phones, too...

Quote
FelixL
Isn't this what we need?

Not specifically, but any change to the bluetooth stack can only help.

Did you test 2.3 on your Droid? Cyanogen 7 has working bluetooth.
[forum.xda-developers.com]

If you have got some kind off easy test procedure/app, I think I will be able to test it by the end of next week (depends on how fast bluetooth on 2.3 gets fixed for the Blade/San Francisco).

I created a simple test app that should determine whether a device can at least open up an L2CAP server socket. It is currently failing for me. But I don't have Gingerbread on my Droid yet. Just waiting for CM7 to be stable. But I do know someone who has it installed so I can send the app to them and see what happens.

If anyone else wants a copy of the test app, send me a private message.

Hi Greg,

have you tested the L2CAP socket bind on CM7 yet? I wonder if there are any differences.

BR

Hi Greg,

I found a reference (http://code.google.com/p/android/issues/detail?id=719) to an app (http://d.hatena.ne.jp/esmasui/20100330/1269982062) which is supposed to apply a working workaround to bind L2CAP sockets. Also the whole sourcecode is provided. I am not that much into java programming that I understand it but perhaps you could have a look. Would be awesome if that would help our cause.

Here is another link to a zip with the source [db.tt] .

so long...

EDIT: Regretfully it seems that this method is also only for client sockets and not for server ones.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/05/2011 09:44PM by rikmer.

I have tried a variety of ROMs, including a nightly build of CM7. The only device that did not throw an exception on binding the server socket was a stock Evo 4G. Surprising considering that HTC devices are supposed to have crappy bluetooth support. Of course all my test all does is open and bind the socket. I have yet to make a connection to the Wii. And since the Evo was not mine, I can't develop with it. I'll keep installing my test app on devices and see if any others look promising. I'm also waiting for a stable build of CM7.

Hi Greg,

good to hear that there is at least one device which throws no error. Could you please send me your test app and perhaps also your source code. I sent you a private message with my email address.

so long ...

Sorry guys, I just realized all the private messages you've been sending me have been sitting in my wiibrew inbox. I guess there is no email notification, or the emails are getting swallowed. Anyways, I'll send out that test app later today!

-Greg

No problem, as you may have noticed the same happened with the message you sent me :D
And no, there seams to be no option for notifications on pm.

Thanks for the app!
I will try it with cm7 and with honeycomb on the Blade.

CM7 on the ZTE Blade: JavaIOError, permission denied.
Honeycomb on the Blade: no working Bluetooth, yet.

Trrrriple post!

I've made a post in a german android forum to get more devices tested:
[www.android-hilfe.de]

You can find the results in the first post, so far only the HTC Desire HD (which is an Evo 4G without the 4G ;)) and the Galaxy S have positive results! On the other side, not even the Nexus One did work. What I think: the bluetooth architekture shows that bluez has a kernel-part and a userspace part.
[source.android.com]

Samsung and HTC have most likely replaced at least the kernel-part, or changed something there.
(Just saw that Greg mentioned this already:
"The problem is someting really low level is not allowing it. Perhaps something in bluez is disabling L2CAP??"
)
Could somebody have a look at the bluez-source-code for the HTC Evo and compare it to the source-code of a device where it doesn't work?
[developer.htc.com]
Maybe we could even compare the kernel parts of bluez, since all kernels are open source? I think it's more likely that this is hidden somewhere in the kernel part, since L2CAP ist positioned there in the picture above.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/27/2011 11:42AM by FelixL.

The Nexus One not working is not surprising. That is a Google Experience device and HTC probably did not do anything custom. Interesting pattern has emerged though, HTC's customizations seem to make a difference. I have access to a Droid Eris, I'm going to try the test app on that device and see what happens.

Thanks for the update Felix!

Hey!

I wonder if somebody has tried to test the app on a HTC Desire HD with CM7. If it won't work than we can be sure that it has something to do with some HTC customisation. Would be at least very interesting.

I tested it on my HTC Desire with Oxygen 2.0.3 (custom Gingerbread ROM) and it didn't work. I also tried to install a RIL from the HTC Desire HD but it didn't change anything. So I think that it is highly probable that it is a kernel issue.

I think I will try to reflash the original ROM onto my Desire to see if it will work under this circumstances and if I am not too stupid also try to compare the bluez source codes.

I will post my results if any.

Consider this problem solved!!!

After browsing the kernel source and writing an email to a guy at qualcomm who did a lot of the bluetooth programming ( I found his address directly in the .c files) a guy at xda-developers ( my personal hero now) named thalamus_ ( a lot of credits to him) compiled me a custom kernel with the appropriate changes to make this work. Here is the changelog https://github.com/thalamus/kernel/commit/bc2fe51d09917b1d6dbe5d6caad1e4031799d278 . You only have to remove this function in /net/bluetooth/l2cap.c, compile the kernel and the test app is working on my HTC Desire ( Oxygen 2.0.3 ).

The deleted function is in the mainline kernel so it is not the best solution to only delete it. thalamus_ is looking into the HTC Desire HD source to find how they realised it. At least we know how to solve the problem for now.

so long ....

Erik

EDIT: As soon as the official HTC Desire Sense 2.3 is out I will test it with this system. If it works then there are at least some more devices where the WiiMote could work.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/16/2011 10:47PM by rikmer.