Playing with the Yamaha UD-BT01 Bluetooth adapter

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Fiddlerwill
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Re: Playing with the Yamaha UD-BT01 Bluetooth adapter

Post by Fiddlerwill »

Saying that i contacted them again and he said hed get me a code. But is it any better than the yamaha?
2Dog
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Re: Playing with the Yamaha UD-BT01 Bluetooth adapter

Post by 2Dog »

The PUC+ has both usb and 5 pin midi in and out.
Fiddlerwill
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Re: Playing with the Yamaha UD-BT01 Bluetooth adapter

Post by Fiddlerwill »

Ok yes i used the first for thr fagerstrom.
Anyhow the yamaha is plug and play im glad to say. Just pluged it into the small power bank and tapped that to the drone stock.
Fiddlerwill
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Re: Playing with the Yamaha UD-BT01 Bluetooth adapter

Post by Fiddlerwill »

But when i go to get a second , sigh my 28£ One is out if stock and everywhere else its about 70€ ! Yikes guess i was lucky
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danjcla
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Re: Playing with the Yamaha UD-BT01 Bluetooth adapter

Post by danjcla »

IMHO I've never used anything Bluetooth that wasn't just a clusterfuck of issues. I'd personally much prefer you didn't give the Bluetooth Mafia any $$$, and do what Logitech does with their wireless keyboards - use some radio protocol attuned to your specific use case (low latency, low data rate) and then provide a cute little USB adapter to plug into the target device that just always works without having to deal with vendor's buggy Bluetooth implementations. If people really, really want Bluetooth, they could plug that device into one of the USB-to-Bluetooth devices that have been talked about here, and just have another little light tech object in their pockets.

Here's more info on the radio hardware Logitech uses. Perhaps they'd even view it as a marketing plus to just let you use their receiver dongles:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logitech_ ... g_receiver

Here's someone using the radio they use with arduino:
https://howtomechatronics.com/tutorials ... -tutorial/

My Logitech devices just always work. Even something as simple as BT Speakers I seem to be continuously fixing broken pairings.

UPDATE: Just did some research, wow yeah the licensing situation with radio protocols seems to really blow. There is one I found that may be license-free, but not sure if the specs are good enough - I just asked them here: https://forum.seeedstudio.com/t/433mhz- ... ing/253452

Also, @admin, take a look at https://github.com/amowry/warbl/issues/1 when you get a chance, thanks! <3
Last edited by danjcla on Sun Aug 02, 2020 12:30 am, edited 1 time in total.
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danjcla
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Re: Playing with the Yamaha UD-BT01 Bluetooth adapter

Post by danjcla »

Another idea, although perhaps would require too much compute overhead: Leave the existing microUSB port on the WARBL, add a battery and a second, internal, full-size USB Host port, and just sell a tiny USB Bluetooth dongle from a random other supplier it's been verified to work with. Then be sure to always use an awkward phrase like "WARBL supports USB and also 3rd party USB Bluetooth adapters" in marketing to avoid being sued.

I actually have a big stack of still in-packaging USB Bluetooth adapters from a failed company, would be happy to send you however many you'd like (and later all of them if you want) gratis for you to play with if you'd like.

Not sure if it's compatible with whatever board you ended up using in production, but you can get tiny USB Host shields for <$4 apparently:

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/3294242 ... a9796af5-0

The only way I can think of it fitting would be to be like mounted on the other side of the air sensor, with enough room for a USB Bluetooth dongle under it before other electronics start. Given the consumer would likely only need to do this once, the procedure could be slightly annoying. IANAL, but maybe you could just offer an "optional installation fee" and then do it before sending out the instrument without running afoul of licensing issues.

FYI it seems like this workaround is not an original thought: https://github.com/semuconsulting/Gamepad_PS4BT (scroll down and look at the picture.)

Also, a thought: If you ever get any returns that are unsalvageable in a profitable way, you should make them available for sale, I'm sure there is a market for hardware hackers who would want to try to fix & play around.

UPDATE: Another thought would be to use a board that supports both MIDI and USB Host Mode all-in-one, looks like this one does and goes for just $5, but I have no idea if its other specs are up to par: https://cyaninfinite.com/seeeduino-xiao ... ontroller/ - although this might actually make it harder to do in an aesthetically pleasing way, as I don't think they make USB-C Bluetooth Dongles, so when used with Bluetooth you'd need both an adapter and the dongle. I can think of maybe some kind of screw-on false bottom you could put over it, but I'm guessing that'd make the mechanics of the case way more complex than they are currently.

UPDATE 2: Just realized you're doing a custom PCB, so I guess it'd make more sense to add something like https://www.maximintegrated.com/en/prod ... 3421E.html and an internal full-sized USB port, but that'd like double to complexity of the board so I can see why you might be hesitant to go that route. When I thought you were mostly stuffing some pre-existing board in there I asked on reddit - https://www.reddit.com/r/arduino/commen ... host_mode/? - and got this comment which may be useful in any case:

"I guess this depends on where you live (and I'm not a lawyer and have no first hand experience making a commercial wireless product), but I believe in most countries those bluetooth modules with RF shielding can be (and usually are) certified separately precisely so that people using them in products wouldn't need to go through the whole certification process again."

I'm pretty sure while searching around I've seen Bluetooth modules like this that look like they are meant to go right on someone else's PCB.

UPDATE 3: This thread looks super-useful regarding pre-certified bluetooth modules: https://www.eevblog.com/forum/projects/ ... roduction/
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admin
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Re: Playing with the Yamaha UD-BT01 Bluetooth adapter

Post by admin »

Yes, if I added Bluetooth I would definitely use a pre-certified module, as it does make certification easier. You do still have to certify the whole device as well, of course, but it's less expensive and more streamlined with a pre-certified module.

There's a Nordic module I have in mind that can use both Bluetooth and other wireless protocols, so in theory it might be able to have the option of either connecting directly to a host device with Bluetooth or an external receiver with a faster protocol. The nice thing about Bluetooth LE is the very low power consumption, so another protocol would need a much bigger battery, but the lower latency and greater flexibility could be nice.

I'm not sure if I'd take the route of making WARBL a host, though it's an interesting idea, simply because it turns the normal MIDI device/host relationship on its head. Can iOS devices connect to a controller that is a host? I agree, it would be nice to be able to use one of those tiny dongles. I suspect a host might also use more power than a device, but I'm not sure about that.
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danjcla
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Re: Playing with the Yamaha UD-BT01 Bluetooth adapter

Post by danjcla »

My suggestion would be to have a second, full-sized USB port be internal to the WARBL, as the user would normally only need to plug in a USB Bluetooth dongle once. If you don't pre-install the dongle, I would think you could skip certification completely. Also if the user doesn't want Bluetooth could knock like $10-$20 off the total purchase price. And it'd also make the device more hackable, as the user could easily put in something other than the BT adapter and then write code to make use of it. Of course it's quite possible power or space concerns would make this impossible, haven't looked into power draw of USB Host mode + BT Dongle vs. only a pre-certified BT module.
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Re: Playing with the Yamaha UD-BT01 Bluetooth adapter

Post by admin »

It's certainly an interesting idea. I hadn't really considered host mode at all, but the possibility of using a dongle like that would definitely be nice.
Andrew Mowry
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