Friday, November 12, 2010

Nokia 5230 and Internet over Bluetooth Software - "Baps"


PROGRESS UPDATE 4 17/03/11:
Work has stopped until I have some significantly free time. HTTP errors and traffic timeouts are causing the main problems and will require a lot more than a few hours of an evening which my other projects take, especially to make it easy for Joe User to install and configure. This is the next project on my todo list but I have a lot of other pressing things I need to deal with over the next 6-8 months. Sorry.
PROGRESS UPDATE 3 27/11/10:
Success! The proxy on both sides is very fast and very minimal. I'm now fixing transfer length issues (HTTP 1.0 support), need to add disconnection protection as well as a decent configuration UI, installer and do some code cleaning and QA. Multiple app connections are possible but data is sent via a single synchronous link to the Baps server (on Windows), i.e. both sides process multiple requests at the same time but data is ordered again for sending between the phone and PC.
PROGRESS UPDATE 2 25/11/10:
End to end transmission is almost complete, I'm having some minor trouble with the data passed back to the phone (and displayed by the proxy on the phone during testing) actually being passed back to the calling app and numerous requests at once going out of sync but this is something I know how to fix :)
PROGRESS UPDATE 19/11/10:
I can now send a single preformatted HTTP request from the phone to the PC and receive a response on the phone (admittedly the reponse is usually a HTTP 301 or 400 error probably caused by incorrect request packet formatting). This is taking longer than I anticipated especially as I have a busy weekend coming up and it is still very much proof of concept (no gui or configuration yet). I'm re-estimating *at least* another 2 weekends.

ORIGINAL TEXT FOLLOWS:
So I've purchased a Nokia 5230 which is a fine touch screen phone and has a built in GPS. The only problem is that it has no WIFI so all net access is charged at premium 3G rates even when I'm at home and have broadband.

I'm now working on a proxy along the lines of the Hiisi Suite and MiniBTProxy called "Baps" (Bluetooth Access Point Service) that will allow an Internet connection over Bluetooth for Nokia mobile phones using Microsoft Windows XP/Vista/7 with a broadband connection.

I've already implemented a simple proxy on Windows and will shortly be adding Bluetooth functionality to it courtesy of the Marge Bluetooth API.

The goals of this mini project are to:
  • Make it easy to install (installer and guide).
  • Proxy only HTTP (no secure HTTPS connections).
  • Support multiple connections (allowing many mobile apps to run at once - a problem for the existing Bluetooth proxies).
  • Provide seamless as possible connection restoring functionality in the event of Bluetooth dropout.

Optional long run goals are:
  • Improve mobile device compatibility.
  • Add Linux server support.
  • Improve performance.

As usual source code will also be made available on release sometime before or around the 21st of November.

15 comments:

Sunit Mohanty said...

Nice. Any chance of this working on older phones like the nokia N70?

Benjamin said...

I'm aiming on it being compatible even with basic Java phones so it should work, but the starting goal is just the Nokia 5230. I've looked at the source code for Hiisi and can improve upon it (but won't base my code on it).

Anonymous said...

Compliments.
I'll follow your project with great interest.

Anonymous said...

Great! Looking forward to see this software working.

satya prakash rai said...

how could i get it
that is really good

John said...

Thanks for doing this, I can't wait for a release.

I.Kamenov said...

Thank you very much. After seeing this project Ive got my hopes back ! I bought Nokia 5230 1 week ago and Ive been searching over the internet since then and I'm so excited now ! Looking forward to your project, and hope it will be ready soon ! Thank you!

Anonymous said...

hi there!
Kudos to you for taking up such a great and much required initiative!

I really need to use it to reduce GPRS costs..
When are you planning to release the software?
Even a beta build will do...

Anonymous said...

sounds promising....

very interested in this and will follow progress..

Orochikun said...

awwsome work.. and again very romising .. hope to hear cheers

Anonymous said...

Is this project still ongoing? There is no update quite a while.

Anonymous said...

Hi there! any progress on this?? i cant wait to see it happen! :D KUDOS

Anonymous said...

Are you stil working on the project?
I would be very nice to be able to surf the www via the bluetooth!!

Best regards / Jonis

chanchi said...

Will be waiting!
Have luck with your other proyects

Best Regards,
Matias

Anonymous said...

I really hope you wont forget this project! :(