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I bought new laptop Lenovo Z50-70 and have installed Ubuntu 14.04. I want to check whether the Bluetooth shipped is v4 or v3?

I know I should check it from main website or from BIOS, but I am curious to find it from command line. Any help please

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2 Answers 2

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That info can be found with hciconfig -a:

$ hciconfig -a
hci0:   Type: BR/EDR  Bus: USB
    BD Address: 5C:93:A2:A3:59:56  ACL MTU: 1022:8  SCO MTU: 183:5
    […]
    HCI Version:  (0x7)  Revision: 0x3101
    LMP Version:  (0x7)  Subversion: 0x1
    Manufacturer: Atheros Communications, Inc. (69)

In recent years, hciconfig has been deprecated, and mostly replaced by btmgmt and bluetoothctl.

$ btmgmt info
Index list with 1 item
hci0:   Primary controller
        addr 5C:93:A2:A3:59:56 version 7 manufacturer 69 class 0x6c0100
        […]

There is a table mapping each numbered version to each Bluetooth specification version:

| hex | dec |Bluetooth|
|-----|-----|---------|
| 0x0 |   0 | 1.0b    |
| 0x1 |   1 | 1.1     |
| 0x2 |   2 | 1.2     |
| 0x3 |   3 | 2.0+EDR |
| 0x4 |   4 | 2.1+EDR |
| 0x5 |   5 | 3.0+HS  |
| 0x6 |   6 | 4.0     |
| 0x7 |   7 | 4.1     |
| 0x8 |   8 | 4.2     |
| 0x9 |   9 | 5.0     |
| 0xa |  10 | 5.1     |
| 0xb |  11 | 5.2     |
| 0xc |  12 | 5.3     |
| 0xd |  13 | 5.4     |

This mapping is defined at section 2.1 Core specification versions from Assigned Numbers Document (PDF), and also available as YAML. Both can be found from Bluetooth Specifications → Assigned Numbers page.

If you're interested, there is also a table for the assigned manufacturer numbers, among many other tables.

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  • the output is here, i cant find version
    – Alex Jones
    Mar 2, 2015 at 13:00
  • 4
    Turn the bluetooth on and try the command again. I think my bluetooth has the same ID and I could check it later
    – Jeremy31
    Mar 2, 2015 at 13:30
  • new output here
    – Alex Jones
    Mar 2, 2015 at 14:16
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    Looks like (0x7) means it is 4.1 HCI Version: 4.1 (0x7) Revision: 0x3101 from another post
    – Jeremy31
    Mar 2, 2015 at 14:38
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    The link provided by @Rinzwind is 404-ing right now, here's an alternative: bluetooth.com/specifications/assigned-numbers/…
    – Waldir Leoncio
    Jul 21, 2019 at 7:26
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While not part of the original question, someone reading this may also wonder how to get the bluetooth version of a bluetooth peripheral (I know I did):

  1. Pair the peripheral
  2. Get its MAC address: bluetoothctl devices
  3. Get its details: hcitool info <mac address>

Note that the ouput of the last command doesn't provide the HCI version, but the LMP version. Many other answers on the web to the original question points to the LMP version, not the HCI version. It can be decoded using the same equivalence table. In the answer above, both have the same value. I searched for an explanation of the difference between both, but didn't find it.

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  • Very simplified, HCI is the interface/protocol between the adapter and the device/host. LMP is the perotocol on top that is used to manage bluetooth connections.
    – Remember Monica
    Jul 12 at 8:53

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