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Edited: Apr 13, 2021

Bittle only works with the USB Adapter

Hello!

I was generously gifted the Bittle kit and am new to robots. It took me several days, but I have been able to successfully piece together the puzzle and have an adorable Pupper that currently only accepts commands while leashed via his USB adapter. As much as I have tried, I can't seem to get Bluetooth or the remote working with him. This forum has been a huge wealth of knowledge and you all have gotten me this far (Thank You!!), but I can't seem to find a solution for either one of these issues, though I have read several posts from others having similar problems.

I'll do my best to explain both. If I need to split this into two posts, I certainly am happy to, but I thought I would combine them in case they are somehow related.

I have a Windows 10 laptop. I have followed the Bittle User Manual and watched Rongzhong Li's video.

The remote: I installed IRremote 2.6.1 and have made the recommended changes to IRremote.h. I have even successfully tested the remote buttons using testInfaredRemote.ino. As mentioned, I can use the test sketch and the button values are returned. However, when I try to use the remote after uploading OpenCat.ino, it doesn't respond at all. (I did disconnect the USB adapter before testing, in case that made a difference.) The bluetooth:

I attempted to connect to the bluetooth adapter (properly installed with the battery installed and charged) to my PC. My PC sees two Bittle Bluetooths as discoverable devices.

BittleBLE* lets me pair without entering a code, however, it is not stable and disconnects then attempts to reconnect over and over again. I have to unpair then remove the bluetooth to stop Bittle from his wake up cycle.

BittleSPP* requires a code to pair, but never connects (it likes "0000", by the way). I've explored other places on the internet to help with this but nothing I found seemed to work. Tonight, I found setBluetoothParameter.ino in the test files but it fails because it is looking for Adafruit_NeoPixel.h. Is this what I need to use to get bluetooth working? And if so, which library should I install since there are several referencing "NeoPixel"?

7 answers2 replies

9 Comments

Ashley Ure

Jul 21, 2022

@Rongzhong Li I'm having an issue with the SPP connecting briefly after the password is input and then disconnecting after a second. I'm using Debian 11 and no matter what I try I can't get a serial connection over Bluetooth.

Rongzhong Li

Jul 21, 2022

Replying to

We haven't tested the bluetooth dongle intensely on different distributions of Linux. Is there any permission-related settings with the hardware's serial port?

Ashley Ure

Jul 25, 2022

Replying to

I've checked permissions and they seem to be fine. What type of Bluetooth chip is on the module?

Rongzhong Li

Jul 25, 2022

Replying to

The chip is JDY23. https://docs.petoi.com/modules/dual-mode-bluetooth

Tanya Branagan

Apr 19, 2021

I'm having the same issue on Linux. They both pair, BLE connects, SPP doesn't but does take the password, and Arduino doesn't find a serial port.

Gero

May 10, 2021

Replying to

On Linux you have to connect via SPP and afterwards you need to assign it as a serial port via:

sudo rfcomm bind rfcomm0 XX:XX:XX:XX:XX:XX 
# XX:XX:XX:XX:XX:XX is the specific device address

Afterwards you can check the connection e.g. with:

picocom /dev/rfcomm0 -b 115200

For serial communication I also recommend moserial.

Most of the time the arduino-IDE won't find the serial bluetooth port, although everything is connected correctly. So I have a workaround by using arduino-cli from the terminal:

# Compile Opencat.ino
arduino-cli compile --fqbn arduino:avr:uno OpenCat.ino

# Upload Opencat.ino via bluettooth serial port
arduino-cli upload -v -p /dev/rfcomm0 --fqbn arduino:avr:uno OpenCat.ino

Rongzhong Li

Apr 13, 2021

Windows seems to have two ports for a single Bluetooth device. I don't know why but just try.

You may take screenshots and videos showing how you operate the remote to feed us more information.

Rongzhong Li

Apr 13, 2021

Hi, the Bluetooth pin code of BittleSPP could be 1234 or 0000. After pairing, you should find a new port in Arduino IDE->Port.

The NeoPixels are the LEDs on NyBoard. They were used to indicate status of the test code. You can download the Adafruit NeoPixel library.

What does the serial monitor print when you press the IR remote's buttons? Any screenshots?

Carol

Apr 13, 2021

Replying to

Thank you for the your reply and suggestions, Rongzhong Li. I know you are super busy still fulfilling orders.

As requested, I'm sending some additional information. - Yes, 0000 works with BittleSPP* in the device list of my last post. It pairs but never connects (the bluetooth LED continues to blink). So the new port never appears in Arduino IDE. I do, however, see the new blutetooth device in Device Manager.

- This morning, something new happened and two bluetooth COM ports appeared in Device Manager and are recognized in Arduino IDE, which is promising! This while still only showing as paired, not connected, and LED is still blinking. (I am still not understanding why I have 2 Bittle bluetooth devices showing up. Is that normal?)

I did a little more investigating and it looks like COM6 is related to BittleSPP* (COM4 then is for BittleBLE* which is unstable).

😮....I just uploaded OpenCat.ino and while it was uploading the bluetooth LED stopped blinking and turned a solid red. The Serial Monitor looks like this:

...and just like that, the commands are working via bluetooth. I promise this wasn't behaving this way in the last 2 days, but I do realize I've already learned a lot in that time so perhaps I "fixed" something along the way somehow. So sorry. Hopefully, others find this useful. I'm going to take another look at IRremote now that bluetooth is working to see if that too has "fixed" itself overnight.

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