Persistent HIDD Bluetooth Connection

Question

Was able to successfully connect my bluetooth keyboard and mouse using:

hcitool scan
sudo hidd --connect AA:BB:CC:DD:EE:FF

But if I reboot or even turn the device on/off I have to reconnect via command line. Any way to do this automatically?

Note: I have tried to connect via bluez-simple-agent but was never successful. The HIDD connect was the only method I was able to make work. I am running Ubuntu 14.04

Answer 1

I would recommend either making an init startup script or adding it via the "Startup Applications" program which is built in. Since you are using a sudo command I believe you will need to edit the sudoers to allow that command without asking for a password. This link has some additional info.

We could make a program to do it easily so that it can be run as an application?

    //resetbt.c
    #include <stdio.h>
    #include <stdlib.h>
    int main(void)
    {
      int x;
      int attempts = 0;
      while(attempts < 20)
      {
        x = system("hcitool scan");
        usleep("500000"); //added a little wait state
        printf("%d", x);    
        if(x != -1 && x == THE_CORRECT_VALUE_OF_X_FOR_SUCCESS_OF_FIRST_COMMAND) //the printf echos a number, check for when its working and when its not. Change the value to be the one it returns when its working
        {
          system("sudo hidd --connect AA:BB:CC:DD:EE:FF");
          exit(EXIT_SUCCESS);
        }
        attempts++;
      }
    }

Compiled with gcc:

    gcc resetbt.c -o reset.bin

Answer 2

I solved the problem by trying bluez again. Turns out the reason it hadn't worked initially was because I was running the commands in the wrong order. On Ubuntu 14.04 I run in terminal:

hcitool dev //Get HCI number
//Press Connect on Device
hcitool scan //Get MAC Address
bluez-simple-agent hci0 MAC_ADDRESS
bluez-test-input connect MAC_ADDRESS
bluez-test-device trusted MAC_ADDRESS yes

I guess I was running trusted before I connected and for whatever reason i'm my machine I had to connect first before trusting.

Answer 3

Old post but i searched the whole web for a acceptable solution. Here it is.. quick and simple

Create the device configuration file (/etc/bluetooth/hcid.conf or /etc/bluetooth/input.conf)

# nano /etc/bluetooth/hcid.conf
device XX:XX:XX:XX:XX:XX {
  name "Wireless Keyboard";
  auth enable;
  encrypt enable;
}

run and add this line to your /etc/rc.local

# hidd --server

Now hidd accepts connections from the slave device.