[BLE] Windows 10 status update

[Linus Torvalds]

On Mon, Oct 8, 2018 at 6:33 PM Lubomir I. Ivanov <neolit123 at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> the solution that the user suggests is to get a BLE dongle. not a good
> option for the end user.

Actually, it's probably a reasonable option.

iirc, the Shearwater actually *came* with a dongle, exactly because
Windows bluetooth is so flaky. I suspect Dirk just didn't think to
bring it with him.

See for example

  https://www.shearwater.com/bluetooth-quick-start/

also, bluetooth dongles are actually pretty cheap. You can find ones
that do BLE for $6.99 on Amazon, and a few slightly better ones for
not much more (I have the Plugable one, for example, which sells for
$12.95).

The biggest problem is to make sure the dongle really does BLE and has
a good driver, because there are some low-end things that only do
traditional BT, and apparently a number of garbage things that have
bad drivers.

Also, range for the dongles seems to be pretty pitiful.

But for people with thousand-dollar dive computers that do bluetooth,
having to buy a $10 dongle is probably pretty acceptable.

                  Linus