On Thursday night (23rd December 2006) I bought a new Sony Ericsson Z550i mobile phone as I wanted to have the ability to access my email remotely which my previous phone was not capable of doing.

After getting everything set up on the phone the way that I liked it I still wasn’t able to get any photos or other data that I took off the phone and also that I couldn’t upload any data to it either as there was no infra red and I didn’t have a USB cable to connect to the PC.

The phone did however have Bluetooth so I started shopping around for a USB adapter as well as verifying the support for the devices in the market under Linux in general.

It’s always good to verify that Linux in general supports a given technology; if that’s the case then you can be reasonably assured that most distributions will support it also meaning that you are not going to waste your $$ buying hardware that isn’t going to work.

After about an hour of research; I found that Bluetooth is supported out of the box these days and I went to the OpenSuSE site to confirm that there were no issues with USB adapters; the information at the OpenSuSE HCL was at best vague and the support seemed to be chipset based if anything – this could be a long lesson by the looks of it.

So it was off to visit the worlds biggest repository of knowledge – Google

Another 30 minutes doing a Google found that most USB Bluetooth adapters should work out of the box with OpenSuSE (since about Ver. 10)as the Bluez Bluetooth drivers were bundled by default.

Next stop was to do some shopping around on the ‘net.

First stop was thediscshop.com.au who had a low range (30m) USB Bluetooth adapter for $31.00 and a long range one (100m) for $41.00. I spent the next 45 minutes trying to find a cheaper local supplier but with no joy, so I resigned myself to the fact that I was going to have to part with $31.00 for a low range adapter.

This morning I went to the Disc Shop on Mulgrave road and found that they only had the high range adapters for $41.00; they didn’t stock the low range ones anymore – not what your web site says boys!!

I left the disc shop wondering how much this was going to cost me in the end, and decided to try dick smith electronics as they usually have these items not too badly priced (not too cheaply either sometimes).

Then I saw somewhere that I hadn’t thought of – Strathfield .

Strathfield (for the international visitors among you); is the type of place that sells everything from car stereos, speaker cable, mobile phones, GPS systems, DVD players, DVD’s and everything in between.

It couldn’t hurt to have a look so I went in hopeful that they may have a low range Bluetooth adapter not too expensive, or at least no more than $31.00. After 5 minutes walking around the shop, I managed to find the area where they sold their USB hubs and other assorted PC accessory items.

Tucked away on a shelf were a heap of USB Bluetooth adapters; not just any mind you – long range Bluetooth adapters! The price was also a pleasant surprise at $29.95; nearly $11 cheaper than the disc shop for the ‘same’ product

I went and paid the attendant and started home with my new Bluetooth adapter.

Stepping back about 2 years; I used to cringe at the mere mention of Bluetooth on a PC.

Several users over the years who just have to have the latest and greatest stuff had installed Bluetooth adapters and had no end of grief. This played on my mind all the way home; I had sworn never to get anything that used Bluetooth, but here I was with a phone and adapter about to take the plunge big time.

After some lunch, I plugged the adapter into my PC and OpenSuSE promptly found the adapter and asked if I wanted to configure the device. So far so good.

Once the device had been configured on the PC and I had set a password for security (apparently, Bluetooth is as bad as wireless connections these days in terms of security. The means to stop people freely connecting to your system is there but the majority of people don’t bother implementing it); With this done I went into my phone to enable Bluetooth.

Surprisingly, the phone picked up the PC with no problems and I was challenged for the password to connect. Even IT people have “fat fingers” at times, I had to have another go – this time there were no issues and the phone and PC were paired with no problems.

Now to test it!

I had taken a photo on the phone earlier today with this moment in mind so now was as good a time as any to see how good things were going.

I right clicked on the Bluetooth applet in my tool bar and selected Open Recent, followed by Z550i.

A window was opened and the phone services were displayed. I clicked on Pictures and then found my photo by navigating through a couple more folders. The photo (1280 x 1024) was transferred to my desktop within about 6 to 7 seconds; not blazingly fast but still not too shabby all the same.

Amazingly this worked with no problems and I was starting to become a “Bluetooth convert”

Admittedly, all my previous experience with it was under Windows. Maybe there was some funky Windows stuff going on which caused all my grief all those years ago? Who knows…

Bottom line was that the adapter and phone were talking to each other under Linux with no problems and with a minimum of fuss.

I then took another photo and tried transferring it to prove that it wasn’t a fluke; again no issues at all in a similar time frame.

Summary:

The Sony Ericsson Z550i was purchased from Vodafone at Cairns Central for $179.00 reduced for Xmas from $199.00. The Bluetooth adapter was purchased from Strathfield for $29.95.

Setup time from plugging in the bluetooth adapter to transferring files was at worst 10 minutes; not bad for technology that under Linux anyway, could be perceived as new technology.

Now, just need to get Evolution working to synchronising my calendar and tasks etc; that’s another post in the near future!