GPS Receivers, Single or Multi relationships?

[David Sparkes]

I have my Holox BT351 paired, registered, bonded, whichever word you choose, via Bluetooth to both my Tablet Laptop and my 'new toy' Smartphone.

I had hoped, mainly for the sake of cleverness than for any practical benefit, that when the receiver was sending information out via Bluetooth that it would be received by both the Laptop and the Phone. However, first tests indicate that the receiver will only serve one partner at a time.

Would anyone like to say whether this is a natural feature of all Bluetoothed GPS receivers, or just a 'restriction' that affects some of them?

My intention is to use the Smartphone when walking on footpaths, and the Laptop when 'navigating' in someone else's car, so you can see the absence of simultaneous operation is not too serious.

Second thought, occuring just before I post, if I pair the receiver to the laptop, feeding it into GPS Gate or Xport, could I then re-radiate it to the Smartphone?

(Xport is at http://curioustech.home.insightbb.com/xport.html).

Being GPS related I wasn't sure whether to post in Getting Out and About, but most of the posts on the first page of GO&A included place names in the title, so I chose International.

Cheers.

[mickeyw]

I have my Holox BT351 paired, registered, bonded, whichever word you choose, via Bluetooth to both my Tablet Laptop and my 'new toy' Smartphone.

I had hoped, mainly for the sake of cleverness than for any practical benefit, that when the receiver was sending information out via Bluetooth that it would be received by both the Laptop and the Phone. However, first tests indicate that the receiver will only serve one partner at a time.

Would anyone like to say whether this is a natural feature of all Bluetoothed GPS receivers, or just a 'restriction' that affects some of them?

My intention is to use the Smartphone when walking on footpaths, and the Laptop when 'navigating' in someone else's car, so you can see the absence of simultaneous operation is not too serious.

Second thought, occuring just before I post, if I pair the receiver to the laptop, feeding it into GPS Gate or Xport, could I then re-radiate it to the Smartphone?

(Xport is at http://curioustech.home.insightbb.com/xport.html).

Being GPS related I wasn't sure whether to post in Getting Out and About, but most of the posts on the first page of GO&A included place names in the title, so I chose International.

Cheers.

I have a Holox bluetooth and a USB gps receiver (can't remember make) , neither of them will talk to more than one device at a time.

[pugwash]

I don't belive Bluetooth 1.1 can ever pair to more than one device. wish it could.

if anyone knows different then please let me know.

[Guest diesel_jim]

Slightly different scenario, i carry two phones at work (mine and works... i like to keep them separate so i can turn work "off" at weekends!), and i have one bluetooth headset.

i can't even set the headset to use both phones (even if one of them is turned off), it's one or t'other.

[Scotian]

As far as I know unless you have multi channel blutooth you can only pair with one device at a time. I have seen some devices that boast up to x number of channels but cant remember what they were. Just look around with that in mind with google and see what you come up with.

[Mark90]

I don't belive Bluetooth 1.1 can ever pair to more than one device. wish it could.

You can have more than one 'inactive' pairing (although not all devices support this), but for multiple 'active' pairings you would need a bluetooth 2.0 device.

[pugwash]

is there much bluetooth 2 stuff out yet?

[darthdicky]

David, not quite as convenient but if you connect it to the laptop with a cable (if it's like mine a special USB one which converts serial>USB), not a standard one) then it will probably work. I've had my Holux 236 connected with the cable to the laptop and via bluetooth to the PDA at the same time and it works perfectly. I haven't got 2 bluetooth devices so I don't know whether it supports more than one at a time.

Richard

[sotal]

I've got a pda phone and I was reading that there was a similar program to gpsgate for the pda itself, which I believe would do as you wanted, I think it would receive the bluetooth signal from the gps and act us a bluetooth gps device for the laptop to pickup.

I can't find the link now but I'm sure I read it on modaco.com if that helps

[Mark90]

is there much bluetooth 2 stuff out yet?

There are some about (there are Bluetooth 2.0 GPS recievers on eblag) and more coming out all the time I guess as most new stuff will be Bluetooth 2.0/2.1

What I'm not sure about is if all 3 (or more) devices need to be BT2.0 or just the multi paired one, not had a BT2.0 device to play with....

So will a BT2.0 GPS connect to say BT1.0 PDA and BT1.1 phone simult at the same time? Or does the BT2.0 device work in say BT1.0 mode to talk to a BT1.0 device and therefore can only support one connection as it's in BT1.0 mode?

[steve_a]

Bluetooth is a master-slave setup.

Most likely is that the GPS is the slave and the latop is acting as the master for the piconet.

The traffic is encrypted so can't be listened to with any sense by another receiver, though if you pair another device into the piconet you should be getting a data net going.

I don't think many consumer devices actually support that though. You would need an app to read the data from the GPS and send it to the phone.

Most devices don't seem to be fully featured for bluetooth from my playing with them