Comments on: Bluetooth Wireless Stowaway Keyboard Coming Soon

Stowaway Universal Bluetooth Keyboard Think Outside, Inc.
The Stowaway Universal Bluetooth Keyboard is the perfect productivity companion to your smart phone, PDA, Tablet, Media Center PC or notebook – almost any device that has Bluetooth technology supports this hot new product! With its genuine full-size 18 mm spacing between keys, the Stowaway Universal Bluetooth Keyboard allows you to quickly type email, memos, or surf the web in optimum comfort. The sleek, award winning, patented folding design is featured in the Design Collection at Museum of Modern Art in New York. Its unique design allows it to easily fit in a pocket or purse, so you can take it everywhere, yet opens to a full size keyboard when you need it. A lap-lock is included that allows the keyboard to be used on a lap – perfect for airports and other tight spaces!

Bluetooth identifier : B01514
Created Date : 2004-05-14
Spec version : 1.2
PRD version : 1.0
Product ID : XTBT01
Software Version : v028
Hardware Version : DVT2
Qualified Product Notice : QPN_156-CTCMrev1.pdf
Compliant Portion : CPD_156-CTCMrev1.pdf
Qualified profile :

- GAP
- HID-Dev-Keyboard-HID
- SDP

Interop Devices : - -
Product Type : PROD
List Date : 2004-05-14
Product Contact Person : Victor Pan
Email : pan@thinkoutside.com
Phone : (408) 551-4545 x 110
Company URL : http://www.thinkoutside.com
BQB : Eriksson, Lars

http://tinylink.com/?h9CyRusrhi

Over 1400 Qualified Bluetooth Products/Components
http://tinylink.com/?Gox5CkcD20

"There are 2 kind of people my friend....those with wires and those without"

What's the advantage of Bluetooth over the IrDA keyboard? Correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't Bluetooth consume more power? I've been using my ThinkOutside IrDA keyboard for about 5 months now (perhaps twice per week at approx. 3 hours each session) and it's still running on the first set of batteries. If the power utilization of my T|T3 and T39m Ericsson phone are any indication, then I highly doubt the BT keyboard will operate at the same level of power efficiency. I'll stay with IrDA for now, thank you.

- Well, it's doing something...

i can't wait, been looking forward to a BT keyboard. This will be the coolest thing since the folding keyboard.

IDEALLY, this will have the same formfactor as the original Stowaway keyboard with the nice dedicated numeric keys. Hopefully, there will still be a way to keep the Palm propped up somehow. It'd be SUPER if they could squeeze a large-capacity battery into the keyboard and you could have a short power cable running from the keyboard to the Palm, charging the handheld while you type (and, optionally, have the keyboard plugged into the wall if there's an AC plug nearby). That'd eliminate the need for a travel charger and a PowerToGo-type battery sled. Just take your Palm, the BT keyboard, and a single wall wart and everything can be recharged!

"and you could have a short power cable running from the keyboard to the Palm"

wouldn't this defeat the purpose of a WIRELESS keyboard?

I don't know about the Think Outside UC keyboards, but the ones from Logitech were horrible. it was like writing on a PowerMac 75 or something, the lag was horrendus and it slowed the handheld down like hell. I got the Palm Think Outside IR keyboard and it's a beauty. No slow downs at all, but I would like to charge my PDA at the same time. I would only buy the BT keyboard if it is proven to be as fast or faster than the IR keyboard, and I would buy one if I didn't already buy the IR keyboard, unfortunately I already did. *shrugs*

dona, there's a new driver for the Logitech Typeaway for Palm OS 5 devices that might really improve your experience with the device. Check out http://g700.palmoid.com/

--
Ben Combee
http://palmos.combee.net - PDA programmer weblog

Indeed, even Apple (certainly not known for low prices) has a full size bluetooth keyboard for $89.

Someone earlier mentioned Power consumption as well. Yipes, that could be a big concern. First off, your PDA will surely last maybe half as long, and then you have to have a power supply for the KB, too. Ouch.

And the possibility of not being able to use it in some places (airport, airplane)? That sucks, too.

I like the idea of a BT KB, but I feel that until battery technology catches up (in the next few years, so I have heard recently), power-hungry ideas like this are not capable of being widely integrated. I like my BT TT3 and S56, but even just the small things I do use those for (dialing #'s, sms, phone and headset), I can see a noticable difference in battery life. When I use it in my 3-hour long classes, of which I have 2-3 a day, a BT KB would leave me Docs-to-go-less VERY quickly. I need longevity, too...

Bluetooth is designed to support 7 simultaneous connections, but the PalmOS implementation can only handle a single serial connection at one time. This is the problem. If you'd like to test this yourself, fire up your Bluetooth LAN access (which uses the RFComm to connect to a network via PPP) and then try and do a Bluetooth Sync (which also uses RFComm to create a virtual serial port). You'll see that only one serial connection can be maintained at one time. Since there is no specific wireless keyboard profile defined in the Bluetooth stack, it would make sense that the keyboard would also use the serial connection profile provided by RFComm which would imply no Bluetooth Internet at the same time as you use the BT keyboard.

HID profile works over two L2CAP sockets.HID device can't work over RFCOMM. Theoretically BT keyboard and BT network connection should work simultaneously.