Bluetooth

GSPlayer is a well-known, excellent, free (!!!!), constantly updated audio player application I’ve very frequently elaborated on (search my blog for my related articles).

In this part of my MWC report series, I show most of the (advanced – that is, I don’t show plain, “boring” Bluetooth headsets) advanced Bluetooth goodies I’ve seen in Barcelona. First, some A2DP news, together with a quick review & comparison of the Plantronics’ new Voyager 855.

A2DP (Stereo Bluetooth audio) news

There were tons of, in cases, brand new and/or forthcoming stereo (A2DP) Bluetooth headphones and/or speakers. Just to name a few:

Cresyn

Cresyn’s new headphones (I haven’t tested them); among others, the CS-BT713 and KS-Kleer (direct homepage of the BT800 is HERE; note that it’s Korean only and there aren’t pages on the two listed headphones at all, their being so new):

Gear4

The Gear4 folks showcased their BluPhones (official product page HERE):

Anyone having been into the audiophile / Hi-Fi business knows loudspeakers and headphones should never be tested alone, without comparing their audio quality (and other parameters) to other, comparable headphones (speakers etc.). This is why strictly comparative tests are needed to fairly compare the sound quality of each set to one another. Unfortunately, the vast majority of the A2DP stereo Bluetooth headphones reviews doesn’t belong to this category and, therefore, shouldn’t really be taken seriously.

As promised in my previous article, I’ve taken a deep look at the latest Windows Mobile 6.1 upgrades for the Dell Axim x51v, HP iPAQ hx4700, HTC Universal and HTC Wizard. All the reviewed ROM versions are based on Windows Mobile 5.2.19209 (Build 19209.1.0.2). I run some VERY thorough SDHC conformance tests because, unfortunately, most (as far as the reviewed models are concerned, all – note that, in this regard, I haven’t tested the Universal) plain WM5 / WM6 devices can NOT be easily made SDHC-compliant. This means you MUST upgrade these devices to some of the newer ROMs (including the ones I’ve reviewed) in order to gain SDHC support. Note that I’ve devoted a separate section (at the end) to my test results showing the results of my trying to “hack” the non-WM6.1 ROM-based devices to accept SDHC cards with the latest hacks available.

Upon my fellow blogger Tim Hillebrand’s report and because I’ll need to quickly enter a lot of info at MWC (and I don’t want to lug around my desktop replacement and, therefore, pretty heavy IBM Thinkpad a31p just for inputting text), I’ve installed the latest StowAway / iGo Bluetooth drivers on all my mobile devices (even non-Windows Mobile ones) to find out whether the drivers available HERE are (still) compatible with the latest operating system / firmware versions. I’ve found out the following:

Windows Mobile

Pocket PC’s (a.k.a. WM6 Classic / Professional):

HP iPAQ hx4700 (WM5 AKU 3.5.2; selecting & using the Widcomm driver, NOT the MS one); HTC Universal (WM6), Dell Axim x51v (WM5 official A12 (AKU 2.3) ROM with the MS BT stack), HTC Wizard (mfrazzz’ XDA Mobile 6 Release 5 FINAL) and the WM2003 HP iPAQ 2210: all work OK with the factory, default driver.

(Note that, as far as mfrazzz’ XDA Mobile 6 releases are concerned, version 3 was a no-go at all: it didn’t even try to connect. Pressing the Disable built-in HID support doesn’t help at all – unlike with all my other test devices or the same Wizard running Release 5.)

Smartphones (a.k.a. WM6 Standard)

HTC Vox / s710 (factory WM6 Smartphone ROM); no native driver; therefore, I tested it with the s620 / Excalibur / MteoR driver (they’re the same – actually, it seems ALL HTC Smartphones have the same drivers, unlike with WM5 and pre-WM5 Pocket PC’s): OK

HTC Oxygen / s310 with the above MS SP drivers (no native driver): the config app doesn’t even load (“Keyboard driver not functioning!”); then, after closing it, I started to get system errors about the keyboard driver DLL not responding.

UPDATE (11/02/2007): There's a version specifically meant for the T-Mo Dash is at http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=340762 . Also, if you have a MS Smartphone (as opposed to a Pocket PC), it MUST be application unlocked for the hack to work. See for example See for example http://www.smartphonemag.com/blogs/index.php?blog=3&p=2004&more=1&c=1&tb=1&pb=1 for more links on application unlocking. Note that app unlocking is absolutely legal.

UPDATE (10/02/2007): there is an even better, easier-to-install and, what is more, even MS Smartphone (Windows Mobile Standard)-compatible hack. Just download the CAB file linked from THIS post (I’ve also mirrored it HERE, just to be on the safe side, should you not want to register at XDA-Dev to access the download), install it (by simply clicking it on your handheld), power down your device (if it’s a Pocket PC – in order to make sure the Registry changes are all flushed) and restart it.

This hack will add full BT DUN to both platforms. I’ve thoroughly tested it on both my WM6 HTC Universal (a Pocket PC) and WM6 HTC s710 / Vox (a Smartphone) and found it excellent. Note that the traditional, BT PAN-based Internet Sharing will still work alongside with the added BT DUN (tested on both devices).

Note that it has a minor annoyance. After you terminate the connection, you will still be unable to access the Net on the Pocket PC or Smartphone that you used as a modem (also see THIS and THIS for similar bug reports). The solution to this is pretty simple: instead of (lengthy and/or awkward) soft resetting your handheld, just make sure you tap either the data connection icon in Comm Manager (this seem to be sufficient with Smartphones) or, as with, it seems, with Pocket PC’s (like the Universal), just dis- and, then, re-enable the phone connection itself (or, alternatively, en-, and, then, re-disable Flight mode). This all makes this small bug easy to live with.

Finally, Smartphone users: remember NOT to long-press the Red dial button to lock your device – it’ll also terminate the call. Instead, use the standard lock menu accessible via the Power button.

There is also a tutorial on making USB connection work with Modem Link HERE, should it be messed up. Also, the entire thread might be worth giving a read, should you still have problems.

Thanks for FX Belloir for pointing out this hack!

(end of update, the now-outdated original article follows. This means you’ll want to prefer the new hack explained above, NOT the old one I still keep for historical purposes only. It's only the first sections, which explain what this is all about, are worth reading for casual users.)

Anyone having read my article New dial-up networking model of the WM5 AKU3 – a must if you use your WM phones as modems knows WM5 AKU3 (and, of course, WM6) has dramatically changed the way dial-up networking is handled – not necessarily in the good direction. (Please DO read the article if you don’t have a clue what I’m referring to and you have ever wanted to use your Windows Mobile handheld as a cellular modem!)

Microsoft, so far, haven’t really done anything to the problem, except for publishing an article (also discussed for example HERE). Therefore, hackers needed to concentrate their forces on solving the problem. After the first failed attempts (for example mine, as is explained in the first-linked article), at last, some excellent XDA-Developers folks have managed to enable this feature with a comparatively easy-to-do hack. I’ve developed the hack further, making it compatible with several handheld models and ROM versions (the previous version available at XDA-Developers doesn’t support the Universal, Wizard and, probably, several other models because it doesn’t do any forced Registry import – it might only be compatible with the P3600.)

The hack makes it possible to use most WM5 AKU3 / WM6 devices in the traditional (pre-WM5 AKU3) DUN dial-up method, in addition to the new, in WM5 AKU3 introduced Internet Sharing.

This means you can use BOTH technologies and can have the advantages of BOTH approaches. With the “traditional” DUN dial-up, you still have the freedom of NOT having to manually start / reconnect Internet Sharing AND the ability to use clients not supporting the BT Personal Area Network (PAN) profile required by the new Internet Sharing. And, as Internet Sharing is still supported, you can still have a real internet sharing approach, making it possible to use the Internet on both the Windows Mobile device acting as a modem and the client that connects to it (and can still have the other goodies Internet Sharing also offers: for example, the accessibility of the phone even with an ongoing Internet session.)

Again, it’s almost impossible to emphasize how important, how revolutional this hack is! If you’ve EVER tried to use your WM5 AKU3 / WM6 Windows Mobile phone as a modem you know Internet Sharing can be a REAL pain in the back, particularly if the client you’d like to use it from doesn’t support BT PAN.

TekSoft, one of the most excellent newcomers to the Windows Mobile developer scene but already being Bluetooth experts (see for example their excellent BlueMouse and BlueMusic applications), have just announced in THIS thread that it's, unfortunately, not possible to "hack" the Microsoft Bluetooth implementation of Windows Mobile to "capture" speech packets and record them:

"We had another attempt of making PhoneREC possible - by intercepting the voice flowing through the BT driver when a Bluetooth headset is connected:

1) when a call is established, the software would have enabled voice routing to Bluetooth headset
2) if a headset was not present, it would have been emulated (to be able to use the device without headsets with phonerec too)
3) voice data over Bluetooth would have been in the form of SCO packets
4) our software would have intercepted the SCO packets, extract the voice data, record it to a file, and play it on the device's speaker (so no need of using the headset to hear the other party in the call)

Unfortunately this failed too, as the SCO packets are handled in the hardware, so we found no way of capturing those from a software program.

The only remaining option is to use a custom made wired headset with PhoneREC. This works and assures high fidelity sound for both parties, but the phoneREC user can only record the phone call by using the special wired headset."

This is certainly very bad news for anyone not having a call recording-capable model.

For the time being, you have only few choices if you want to record your phone conversations. These are as follows:

Everyone into A2DP and stereo, wireless Bluetooth headphones knows the Microsoft Bluetooth stack, quality-wise, used to be WAY worse than that of competing products (Widcomm / Broadcom on Windows Mobile; Nokia and other products on other platforms). I’ve thoroughly elaborated on this issue in the Comparison & thorough compliance report of three stereo Bluetooth headphones: Nokia HS-12W, Plantronics Pulsar 590 and 260 and previous articles. Note that you WILL want to read at least this article - it may answer a LOT of your A2DP-related questions.

Fortunately, there IS light at the end of the tunnel. Upon seeing THIS XDA-Dev thread (linked from THIS thread at MoDaCo), I’ve made some very thorough tests with the new, WM6 Bluetooth implementation and was VERY pleased with the results.

Yes, the new WM6 (as far as REAL, official WM6 versions are concerned and NOT illegal, “cooked” ROM’s, some of which still having the pre-WM6, low-quality A2DP implementation) indeed delivers a vast quality increase.

Listening to any music with singing was pretty much impossible with the MS BT stack back in the WM5 days (with an incompatible pair of headphones; don’t forget that, as has also been pointed out in my already-linked article, the A2DP implementation of WM5 delivers excellent results with already compatible A2DP headphones like the Nokia HS-12W); now, with WM6, the sound quality is pretty much close to that of the Widcomm (Broadcom) BT stack. It’s only audiophiles (like me) that will notice the VERY slightly lower sound quality with the new, WM6 implementation; ordinary people not really.

Again, the sound quality of the new A2DP implementation is orders of magnitude better (again, I only speak about incompatible headphones, NOT about compatible ones like the already-mentioned Nokia HS-12W! Keep this in mind when I speak about the bad sound quality of pre-WM6 A2DP implementation) than that of ANY WM5-based Pocket PC’s or Smartphones. This means you can, finally, dump Widcomm hacks or Widcomm-based handhelds in favor of new, WM6-based phones.

What about pre-WM6 Windows Mobile models?

After Microsoft introduced A2DP support in January 2006 with WM5 AKU2, the vast majority (exceptions include, for example, the HTC Wizard, which has never officially received any A2DP support) of new models (and operating system upgrades for existing ones) coming with the Microsoft BT stack (that is, all WM5 models except for Acer’s and HP’s models and the Fujitsu-Siemens T830 phone) have been released with A2DP support.

The A2DP sound quality of WM5 AKU2 devices was terrible. It was only with VERY few headphones models (for example, the already-mentioned Nokia HS-12W) that it delivered good sound quality. The vast majority of existing A2DP stereo headphones models (for example, the Plantronics Pulsar 590 and 260) were plain useless with the stack.

http://www.aximsite.com/boards/vbarticles.php?do=article&articleid=214

Just Another Mobile Monday has just published a review of the Logitech FreePulse Headphones. It's worth giving a read if you'd like to know how these A2DP Bluetooth headphones fare.

I also recommend THIS article for more info on what A2DP is and what issues it has.

Anyone having read the article The new dial-up networking model of the WM5 AKU3 – a must if you use your WM phones as modems knows AKU3 (and, of course, WM6) has dramatically changed the way dial-up networking is handled.

The Microsoft WM folks have just published an article on the PAN vs DUN issue, the central issue of the new networking

It was over a month ago that I’ve published an all-in-one comparative review & compatibility report (available HERE) on three A2DP (stereo Bluetooth) headphones. Now that the headphones have also arrived at the U.S.

Anyone having read my well-known (for example, PPCT-frontpaged) article (link below) on how WM5 AKU3+ (and, therefore, Windows Mobile 6 (Crossbow)) handles dial-up connections via Bluetooth knows that, so far, it has been impossible with Mac OS X to use Windows Mobile devices with the latest operating system version(s) as modems via Bluetooth.

Now that Apple has released a new, 10.4.9 version of Mac OS X, this problem is gone.

http://www.ubergizmo.com/15/archives/2007/03/nokia_5700_rumor_hits_the_net.html

UPDATE (06/05/2007): Great news & tips for WM6 users - a MUST read!

UPDATE (04/12/2007): Several new Pulsar 260 reviews

UPDATE (03/09/2007):

1. while the previous beta(s) didn't work with the Nokia HS-12W (see this user report), JETware Hands-free Extension for Windows Mobile phones may receive real Nokia HS-12W support in the future, meaning you'll also see the caller name on your Bluetooth headphones, not only the number. Other users have reported success with Sony's HBH-DS970 (see for example this thread for more info).
2. You can not upgrade the firmware (to, for example, fix the Microsoft BT stack-related, major issues of the Plantronics headphones or to add multiple source support to the Nokia) on any of the reviewed headphones. This is diametrically opposed to, say, Motorola's approach, who fixed the skipping problem present in early HT820 revisions with a firmware upgrade flashable to these models (see this thread for more info if interested).
3. Another HS-12W thread here. I also highly recommend the thread Sony Ericsson HSD-DS970 vs Nokia HS-12W, especially that of FOSA.
4. Reader feedback: 1, 2

UPDATE (03/18/2007): : MobilitySite frontpage

The original article is as follows:

Unfortunately, except for Mobileburn’s excellent Bluetooth Stereo Headset Roundup , PDAMania’s two related articles (English summary here), Fire Dragan‘s roundup and some other HowardForums and XDA-Developers threads (see for example this and this), there are no real one-to-one feature & compatibility & quality comparisons between current Bluetooth stereo headphones.

This is why I’ve set out and made some SERIOUS tests with three current and popular Bluetooth stereo headphones: the Nokia HS-12W, the Plantronics Pulsar 590A/590E and the brand new Plantronics Pulsar 260.

Unlike with most other tests ever published on Bluetooth headphones, I’ve tested all these three headphones with a heap of (mostly my) A2DP-enabled gadgets to get a clear picture of their compatibility and sound quality with each of them.

Why compliance testing is useful, in the first place? As you may know, A2DP (that is, stereo Bluetooth sound transfer) is pretty new. As with several other areas of Bluetooth, A2DP is still suffering from its infant illnesses; particularly, major compatibility problems. This means stereo headphones that otherwise sound excellent with one (set of) sound source(s) won’t necessarily produce the same results with other devices.

The major incompatibility issues also result in a lot of contradicting reviews and user opinions about current A2DP-capable headphones. For example, when a user "only" has A2DP sound sources of one set but not of alternative ones, he/she may find a given, otherwise not fully compatible set of headsets just great or plain awful and useless - all depending on what sound sources he/she has tested the headphones against. For example, if a particular user uses his or her stereo headphones with the Widcomm Bluetooth stack (see below), he or she most probably will never run into compatibility problems and may even consider the given model excellent. On the other hand, if he or she happens to test against the Microsoft Bluetooth stack and he/she happens to have an incompatible headset, he or she will probably find the headphones plain useless. This, unfortunately, makes most reviews & user opinions pretty one-sided or even plain unreliable.

This is why thorough, multi audio-source tests are extremely important when you test Bluetooth A2DP headphones.

Unfortunately, except for Mobileburn’s excellent Bluetooth Stereo Headset Roundup and some HowardForums threads (see for example this), there are no real one-to-one feature & compatibility & quality comparisons between current Bluetooth stereo headsets.

This is why I’ve set out and made some SERIOUS tests with three current and popular BT stereo headphones: the Nokia HS-12W, the Plantronics Pulsar 590A/E and the brand new Plant

You may have heard (particularly if you’ve been following my past articles) about the differences between the Microsoft Bluetooth stack coming with HTC Phone Edition devices and know its major shortcomings when compared to the major alternative, the Widcomm / Broadcom BT stack:

1. It lacks BT PAN (albeit the latest AKU3 has some basic support for BT PAN server functionality) support, which would be of high importance in, say, chatting / talking apps (for example, 4Talk or Microsoft Portrait or multiplayer games)
2. It, as far as versions prior to AKU3 are concerned, lacks support for BT FTP (see THIS ARTICLE for more info)
3. It has wildly inferior A2DP (stereo Bluetooth headphones) sound quality

No wonder a lot of people have been actively trying to “hack” the Widcomm BT stack on Pocket PC models initially coming with the Microsoft BT stack. Of them, the WM5-upgraded Dell Axim x50(v) and the x51(v) may already be known to you (I’ve also posted a lot on the project; see for example THIS).

Some weeks ago, well-known XDA-Developers hackers started to work on the port to HTC Phone Edition phones; for the most part, with success.

For the most part, you may ask? Yes, unfortunately, there still are problems; they are as follows:

1. Currently, it’s not possible to use traditional Bluetooth headsets for calling. Upon trying to connect to the headset, the PDA will just display an error message as can be seen in HERE. In the Hermes Widcomm developer thread, people are working on fixing this issue; so far, with little success. This will be a showstopper for many.
2. You won’t be able to use the PDA as a modem via Bluetooth (see my tutorial here) using either pre-AKU3 DUN or AKU3 Internet Sharing BT PAN. Also see this thread for my posts on this problem.

That is, if the lacking functionality is a showstopper for you, do NOT consider switching BT stacks as yet.

Model-specific tutorials / threads

Check them out for a discussion and / or a tutorial for installing the BT stack on your particular phone model:

http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=285696

http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=285419