USB to Bluetooth Adapters?

OtakuMan asks: "I am looking for a Bluetooth adapter so I can free up some of my USB slots. I have found many Bluetooth -> USB adapters, but I have not found any USB -> Bluetooth adapters. Any help?"

Comments

Re:articualate!

[Speedy8]

He wants to have fewer USB ports taken up on his computer and he wants to be able to make his USB devices portable and cut baack on the cables they have. Something like a USB hub that instead of plugging into the computer through USB but used bluetooth to do it.

Good luck!

[Raetsel]

I'll be very, very surprised to see the kind of thing you seem to be looking for. It sounds almost like you plugged one of those bluetooth dongles into a USB hub, another Bluetooth dongle into your computer, and wondered why you couldn't use the hub. (Is that what you had in mind?)

Problems:

1. IIRC, USB requires a computer to "run the hub." It has to be in the loop, somewhere, to arbitrate/manage/etc. the connections.

   (IEEE 1394/Firewire/iLink, on the other hand, doesn't require the computer and thus you can plug your Firewire-equipped Mini-DV camcorder into your Firewire VCR (or editing deck) and expect it to work. Curiosity point: any /.ers out there plugged a Firewire hard drive straight into a DV camcorder and had it work?)

2. USB -- version 1.x -- is designed for 12 Mbit/sec. Bluetooth tops out (for now) at 1 Mbit/sec. (i.e. USB over Bluetooth? Bad idea.)

Short version: I don't think USB was designed to work that way. You do get it to work and that's going to be one hell of an ugly hack.

Close, but no cigar

[cookd]

I'm guessing you mean you want a Bluetooth dongle you can plug into your USB (printer | scanner | keyboard | mouse | HDD | joystick | pressure cooker) and make it work -- since this is the kind that seems hard to find.

Bad news -- it doesn't exist, and probably won't ever exist. If it does, it will be a hack that will cause a whole generation of telephone support personnelle to commit suicide (similar to the invention of parallel port scanners and other hack-job peripherals).

All is not lost, though. You can at least get rid of some wires. They make Bluetooth Parallel adapters and Bluetooth Serial adapters, some of which even have Linux drivers available! While not a complete solution, it is a (good?) start.