Pair as Bluetooth keyboard to devices

[martonborzak]

Initial Bluetooth feature set:

• Virtual BLE HID keyboard. The central device sees an advertised keyboard, which it can pair with.
• Auto-reconnect of paired keyboard.
• Send key-presses.
• Planned (but not confirmed yet): multi-peripheral support to connect multiple HID devices at the same time.

Further features might be introduced later, for example a virtual gamepad or mouse. Supporting a native manufacturers' Bluetooth remote is mostly not possible since they are almost always proprietary without public information. If there are manufacturers with open specifications, we will investigate it, but now the focus is providing a HID keyboard.

[Freshhat]

Hi Marton, i'm just asking for a ETA for this topic.

I see that you have added this feature to the Roadmap Q4 2023 milestone. For me this is the last topic, which is blocking me to use the remote as a daily device. In the initial Roadmap planning it was scheduled for October 2023:

[zehnm]

It is time for an update since this feature has been moved back in our roadmap multiple times.
Unfortunately the Bluetooth functionality won't be ready in Q1.

The reasons are manyfold.
It’s not just a complex technology, but also involves dealing with proprietary chipset firmware and vendor dependent support and bug fixes, which has to play together with a software Bluetooth stack. Even if that all works together, it can still fail with vendor-interoperability issues or bad user experience. Ideally, a keyboard peripheral must work with every device supporting a Bluetooth keyboard. Discoverability and reconnection must be fast and automatic.
This has taken way more effort than initially planned, especially the Linux Bluetooth stack has given us the blues.

After many failed attempts, we came to the realization that we were on the wrong path and that a different Bluetooth stack would solve many problems. We’ve been fighting with getting virtual peripheral devices working. That is: simulating a keyboard, mouse, or gamepad with the Remote Two.

Now the good news: we are in the final stage of evaluating alternative Bluetooth stacks and have a working prototype of a BLE keyboard, which works with Apple and Android devices. We still have to test a few things, software wise and also in terms of interoperability, but we are confident that we can soon commit on a new Bluetooth stack and move forward with the Bluetooth functionality.

[Freshhat]

Thank you very much for the update Markus. For the moment the missing Bluetooth integration is still the blocker to really use the remote in a daily use. In my setup i have a few fire tv sticks, which for sure can be also controlled via Android Debug Bridge inside Home Assistant, but there the performance is very weak.

So if we from community side can support in any way, please just give us a hands up, would also have multiple OS types in my Home Lab where i could test against.

[tiki-ftl]

Thank you for the update!
Since the BT functionality still seems the only way to control a PC without extra hardware, I very much welcome this, indeed, I am "dependent" on it.
Is it possible, to name the remote or it`s BT-device, respectively, with an unique and clear name?
Please do not use "HID-device" like the Harmony did.
Thank you!