So yesterday I tried using my new Nokia 3650 with my friend's bluetooth keyboard. Dominic warned me that the MS bluetooth dongle was crap, but alas I didn't listen...

I had my new phone today I headed home from work - I wanted to get this bluetooth thing going. You see, at work I tried the IrDa connection from my laptop to the phone, however for some reason (random Longhorn issue, device issue, sun spots, whatever) the IrDa connection would only last for about 5 seconds and the phone would never successfully connect. With that, I set out on a mission.

I went to the company store and bought a new keyboard and mouse combo - we get a nice discount on the hardware for this, so I figured that even if the keyboard & mouse were just OK, it would still be a reasonably good deal depending on the cost of a bluetooth reciever. I brought the combo home, and searched the web...

You see, the company store has a policy that hardware can only be returned if it is unopened or defective - if I found that a bluetooth reciever was relatively cheap I wouldn't keep the keyboard and mouse, but rather just get the reciever... I searched the web and found that recievers were going for around $50 - so the keyboard & mouse were an OK deal (not a stellar deal, we don't get that good of discounts <G>)

I also research the web and find a MS KB article about hooking up my Nokia phone to the bluetooth reciever [located through RingTonerFest]... At this point I haven't broken the seal on the hardware, and I'm confident that with a little registry hack I will be good to go.

I install the keyboard and mouse... pretty cool actually. The nice electric glow of the blue at the top of the reciever is quite pretty.

Configure the phone. Try to connect. No. Try again. No.

Time for more web research... Ahh, Nokia says that to connect their phone you need the "Serial Port Profile (SPP)", but of course... and I remember reading from Dominic that they only shipped a few profiles... more searching...

Found a thread where someone says they talked to people from MSFT - they don't support SPP and probably won't until later in the year. However, their is a third party that has hacked it - BlueSoleil. Of course the demo version only supports 2MB of transfer, and my keyboard will stop working if I try it. Also, their install gives about 40 warnings about installing it... maybe not.

Tommorrow I'll post some mail and see if I can find out anything internally - this is ridiculous.