Bluetooth standards on Librems 5 and 14

The devil is in the details. On L5 and L14, what are the BT specs - do they cover BLE4.2? Is this HW/FW (nothing to do with Purism) or something that needs something from the OS or kernel (still might not be a Purism thing)?

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For Librem 5 …

Some info: https://source.puri.sm/Librem5/community-wiki/-/wikis/Frequently-Asked-Questions#24-is-bluetooth-50-supported-what-bluetooth-profiles-are-supported

Since it is a discrete card, the main consideration is the hardware and firmware on the WiFi/BT card - and whatever the answer is it could change in the future if you replaced the card.

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Yeah, thanks, but I’m looking for a bit more info than that what we have in the FAQ. It may not be available yet but I was wondering if anyone here had a sense on how BT functionality standards work. For instance, does “supporting v5” automatically include 4.2, if v4 support has only been demonstrated. It may take untill empirical testing but would be nice to know that detail beforehand.

EDR+2.1, 4.0, 4.1, 4.2 and 5.0 are stated as supported for RS9116. More within this post link.

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@Quarnero thanks, that covers most of what I was after. Is that also included in the wiki somewhere yet - info and link?

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@amosbatto will let us know, I hope so :grinning:.

This was already in the FAQ, but I just updated it to add more info from @dos: https://source.puri.sm/Librem5/community-wiki/-/wikis/Frequently-Asked-Questions#24-is-bluetooth-50-supported-what-bluetooth-profiles-are-supported

By the way, you can now download the RS9116 data sheet and application notes if you register an account on the Silicon Labs’ web page, and unlike NXP, it accepts email addresses like gmail, yahoo and hotmail.

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I’m going to mark this thread with @Quarnero’s L5 solution, but if anyone has similar info on L14, that would interest too.

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the Info regarding Bluetooth on the Librem14 is quite easy officially it’s not supported by Purism since it needs closed source driver for the WiFi card to work at all and then it’ll probably only Bluetooth 4.0 if at all. Not sure what the current very old WiFi card in the Librem Laptops is capable of.
But you could just replace the WiFi card with another and then install the closed source driver for that from the Debian repos. You can find multiply explanations how that’s done in this forum.

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Thanks. I don’t know why, but I was daydreaming of actually having enough to get one and for some reason thinking I’d by default have latest BT along with the wifi-card. Silly of me.

What standard is the wifi-cardslot on L14? I don’t suppose the L5 wifi+BT card could be an option?

I’ve been using the information in this thread to replace the WiFi card in a Librem13 and it worked without a Problem.
But have not used the Bluetooth part much.
AFAIK the WiFi+BT card in the Librem5 is a different from factor at least the one on the devkit is if I remember correctly.

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