Home/Away - Rocketfish Micro Bluetooth 2.1 EDR USB Adapter Works Well

[sckoman]

I have this working well for Home/Away. If you have given up on the Bluetooth Connector because
of finding the right dongle, try this. If you try it, please post your results in the Bluetooth Connector forum thread.

After over of week of use, with multiple BT devices coming and going, this one seems to
work reliably. Very happy and surprised after going through allot of work to find this.

Candidate dongle for use with the Bluetooth Connector (BT Connector):
Rocketfish Micro Bluetooth 2.1 EDR USB Adapter ... its at the latest BT 2.1 level

There is also another Rocketfish BT adapter that is bigger, $10 less and at BT 2.0 level.
I have not tried it yet.

Rocketfish is a private label of BestBuy stores ... I do not know who the OEM is yet. But
this boy rocks. Range is just shy of 30 ft. It works 10 ft through multiple walls and
floors. It gets though 4 walls and 1 floor to a upstairs room 10 feet away without fail.

HomeSeer Version: Standard Edition 2.3.0.16
Operating System: Microsoft WinXP Pro 5.1.2600 Service Pack: 3.0
BT Connector plugin hspi_bt.dll version 2.48.2.2

The Rocketfish Micro BT Adapter uses the Widcomm stack 5.1.0.5500 and shows up in device
manager as 'Broadcom 2046 Bluetooth 2.1 USB Dongle'

I have been using this device reliably in 'Discover Service' mode with a handful of BT
phones. In this mode, you get the signal level (analogous to RSSI) reported back to HS.
A few of the phones have Discovery packets turned off and all still works fine.

For other hints, see my posts in the BT Connector forum.

[rmasonjr]

My biggest problem with BT home/away was convincing my wife to leave her BT enabled on her phone. It sucked the battery down when it was on all the time. I finally gave up when she never remembered to enable it.

[sckoman]

Official Response about Widcomm updates

Here is the official response about Widcomm updates for Rocketfish

Hi Steve

Thank you for contacting Rocketfish about your Rocketfish Micro Bluetooth 2.1 EDR USB Adapter RF-MRBTAD. I will do my best to assist you so you can start enjoying your product right away!

First of all, Steve, let me apologize for the time that it took me to provide you with a response. At this moment we are experiencing a higher than normal quantity of E-mails due to the holidays. I understand that this is no excuse; however, I hope that you don't take this delay as a lack of consideration towards our customers. We care about our customers and we are constantly working to improve our products performance and our customer care.

As you have explained in your E-mail, you need info about the widcom 5.2. Here are my recommendations:

Steve, we do not have any update for the Widcom software. The software that comes with the product have been tested and we had very good results and performance.

However, bear in mind that as soon as these drivers become available, they will be noticed on the following link:

http://www.rocketfishproducts.com/p-...b-adapter.aspx


I hope that you find this E-mail helpful, but just in case you need anything else remember that you can contact Rocketfish Products Customer Support at 1-800-620-2790 and provide the agent with your case number: 4153614. With this number he will be able to see my notes and assist you faster.

You can always count on us, =)

Mariano Garcia and the Rocketfish Products Customer Care Team

Steve wrote:
Software configuration Product model number: RF-MRBTAD Product description: Micro Bluetooth 2.1 EDR USB Adapter This product uses the Widcomm 5.1.0.5500 Bluetooth
Stack.dongle When and how will Rocketfish make available the Widcomm update ?
How do you suggest I get this update?