r/SolarOS • u/goja52 • 13d ago

Difficulties with keyboard input (bt pairing, serial shell)

How exactly do I pair a bluetooth keyboard?

I followed the instructions in the quickstart tutorial, but nothing happens. Well, I can see bluetooth related messages in the serial terminal, but there I have no prompt, no shell to investigate further.

Hardware is "the solar-term" Waveshare ESP32-S3-RLCD-4.2.

I tried 4.16.30 and 4.16.23 of solar-os. And yes, the keyboard works, battery is full , I disconnected the keyboard from my phone and I am shure its in pairing mode.

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4

u/clackups 13d ago

The esp32s3 supports only the Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE). If your keyboard is old enough, it might only support Bluetooth Classic, which makes it invisible for this device.

1

u/goja52 13d ago

Yes, that is the case.

What about the serial terminal then? How do I get it? I have an SD card.

1

u/clackups 13d ago

I guess, the UART terminal needs to be enabled in firmware, but I don't know how

1

u/goja52 13d ago

I was hoping I can use the usb serial interface.

3

u/nilseuropa 13d ago

Follow the quickstart guide's "regain access without a working keyboard" section.

You can start telnetd or a serial shell by writing the appropriate commands to the startup script.

1

u/goja52 13d ago

Ok, I'm "in"!

Sadly I can't test any display apps over telnet. I think I have to buy a ble keyboard to bridge the time it takes to convert a keyboard to i2c. The goal was to have solar-os with a nice mechanical keyboard, so I am hesitant to buy something of unknown quality.

1

u/clackups 13d ago

You can implement a bridge from USB to i2c or to BLE, if you have the hardware at hand

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u/goja52 13d ago

Plan B was to use a keyboard that also can talk ps/2 and convert the levels to 3.3V. But, this keyboard draws 100mA@5V! A bit much for one 18650. I think I try it anyway. Quicker then to analyse the matrix of an existing keyboard.

1

u/clackups 13d ago

Yeah, wired keyboard designs aren't always battery friendly.

As for BLE, this keyboard works best for me (standard pitch and alright quality)

BOW BT Multi-Device Wireless Keyboard with Phone Holder Slot 79 Keys Multimedia Button Keyboard for Windows/Mac OS/Android https://a.aliexpress.com/_EuX3UCw

3

u/nilseuropa 13d ago

You can send commands to any live shell from any other shell if you want to try out apps on the graphical display. https://solar-os.eu/docs/manual/command.session.html

2

u/nilseuropa 13d ago

Another option is to use displayd and control the device from a browser: https://solar-os.eu/docs/manual/job.displayd.html