Database Users

a 'remote' challenge!

Hi all
Don't know how many of you guys are ipaq transferees like myself, but there is one piece of software on the ipaq that has not been adopted in the XDA series handhelds, namely REVO - the remote control tool.
Anybody into gadgets in the way that we are will have too many remote controls lying about. This tool allowed me to put them on a shelf, and use them very rarely.
So.....
Does anybody have a clue how to extract it from the ipaq ready to be placed on the XDA II. NAturally, owning both devices, one would assume that providing I use it with either one or the other, you can provide this useful information conscience clear!!!!
Look forward to any thoughts
JJ

jjcodex said:
Does anybody have a clue how to extract it from the ipaq ready to be placed on the XDA II.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Unfortunately, the Himalaya infrared hardware is not capable of communicating with customer devices like TV sets. There is nothing any software could do about this - only some hardware change can help.
Cheers
Daniel

Also some Ipaq's Irda are just very powerfull made..have a range of 10-15 meters.
Normally pda Irda's have a range of 2-3 meters.

not sure why the ir would be 100% incompatible with the tv
if special software written for it was used
about the range issue
http://www.smarthome.com/8220A.html
http://www.homeautomationnet.com/Shopping/remote-control-accessories.asp
http://www.pdawin.com/irtranceiver.html
suppose one of these would inc the range
i had
http://www.pdawin.com/
this software running on my xda1
too bad the range was only 30cm

Thanks for the feedback guys.
I am surprised that the range is so different between devices. I understood that the infra red transmit distance was usually further than the receive. Would this be applicable to the XDA II I wonder. I will run some experiments with a phone to see if I can assess distances.
Had a look at the PDA Win software, looks quite functional, perhaps not as slick as the built ipaq version. 30cm range... doh!
They seem to have specifically excluded the XDA II. I wonder if this is a range issue as you guys have suggested.
Hmmm......
Sounds like an excuse to spend money on a very very very posh do-all remote control!!!!!!!!! (LOL)
Thanks for your thoughts anyway.
Cheers guys

Rudegar said:
not sure why the ir would be 100% incompatible with the tv if special software written for it was used
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Click to collapse
Well, TVs use "consumer" infrared, while PDAs use "IrDA". See here for a more detailed explanation. It has nothing to do with the power or the range of the IR LEDs and phototransistors.
Cheers
Daniel

Well, TVs use "consumer" infrared, while PDAs use "IrDA". See here for a more detailed explanation. It has nothing to do with the power or the range of the IR LEDs and phototransistors.
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Click to collapse
and yet i had pdawinøs software working ok on my xda1
and also used it to comm with my laptop so some infrared classify as
both IrDA and consumer
if the range is ok then the only difference i can think of is protocol and that should be possible to work out so that software would work on the xda2
i also had my trusting old hp48 calc working as a remote at a time
prob still have the software somewhere

Well, TVs use "consumer" infrared, while PDAs use "IrDA". See here for a more detailed explanation. It has nothing to do with the power or the range of the IR LEDs and phototransistors.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I would have to side with Rudegar on this one, as I have not only used the Ipaq for several consumer devices but the extremely fundamental Palm III (aahhhh those were the days, when a calculator was considered to be a posh option.
I would say, however, that neither successfully worked with a sky remote, which I wonder may be due to two-way data transfer. I wonder if this is the IrDA vs Consumer difference.
I read the link to the Irda page, which as you suggest states that the two are different. I would agree that the two standards are different, but unless built-in hardware compatability is provided to the majority of pda's, there must be a way of emulating the consumer device within the IrDa protocols.
Hmmm... A little out of my depth on this one. Hopefully somebody else can explain!!
Cheers
JJ

The xda 1 I have works fine as a remote control for my tv and dvd etc, I use "learning2 mode to program the xda using the original remote handset. The xda 2 however is total crap as a remote, however if you wish to use it from one position, for instance the couch in your living room, there is a device called an infra red repeater, this allows you to operate an infra red device from a greater distance, I will see if I can find a name for manufacturer but I am sure this device exists, its selling point was enabling you to operate your cable/sattelite box from upstairs even when you had no line of sight to the box. It was a money saver because you could connect your cable/satellite to your upstairs tv instead of having to purchase a second box from the provider and be able to change channels from upstairs.

Guys,
I wouldlike to get inside the discusion because I have almost the same problem and I would like some help.
I also found the hard way that the XDA II does not work as a remote control, then I found this Total Remote software and module that really got myself impressed, I bought it and also the adaptor for the audio output.
Now I am able to output the signals without problem, the software works very fine and control the eletronic equipments without any problem.
But then I got to test the learning mode and then my problems started. The XDA II canot learn nothing! It wont recognize any kind of command that comes from any remote controler. To make sure it was not a problem of the software I tested to more diferent remote controler softwares and they also does not learn. What really make me disapointed is that even touching the controler IR led with the XDAII IRda port, the XDA II can´t learn anything.
I already tried to disable the "receive all incoming beans" and do a soft reset, but this also does not worked.
I am writing this in the hope I am forgetting something and one of you give me any more idea.
OR
To also ask for the more experts, if it is possible to substitute the IRda port with a common IR led found on any remote controler (of course doing some soldering). If there is compactibility between them, I think I will give it a go, since I really whant a remote control on my XDA II.
Thanks a lot
Felipe

thats what i've been saying all along
the xda2's ir modules is not the default ir module which all the remote software is written for
the remote applications would have to be written directly for the modules ir in the xda2 for it to work
i've come across no such applications as of yet

answering machine software???

hi guys, i couldnt help noticing that when i previously used nokia 6600 (symbian s60) they had few 3rd party that is able to make use of their audio mechanism during callls. for example, one software can make selected background noise for opposite callers so they think that u are at a train station for example when infact u r silently at home. another software is an on board answering machine, which after the phone rang for a few times it answer the fonecall with your automated recorded voice and recorded a msg left by the caller on the fone. this is convenient for us so we dont need to call back our voicemail and reduce cost as well as some telco charge to use their voicemail service. im surprised these kind of software have not came out for our windows mobile device when its already available for symbian. im sure it shouldnt be that hard to make it. any coder expert wanna give it a go??

cutefox, what kind of searches have you made for this software on this board? Did you have much luck?
V

i already tried commercial such as handango and pocket gear.. even freeware sites also no luck.. jus dun understand why no 1 made one yet.. shouldnt b too hard to make one.. it will be a big market to sell such a software for our ppc phone device now that more devices is coming out..

Cutefox: have you tried searching this board? Let me save you the effort, but it'll be a good idea next time. It's not generally considered possible, at least on WM2003 devices because of both hardware and software limitations. It's not that no one has thought of it before: someone seems to think of it approximately every two days... but there are many many threads on this issue.
V

Look at what I said here...
http://forum.xda-developers.com/viewtopic.php?t=9761
That sums up why we can't do it using the api's available to us now. The funny thing is the way bluetooth sends the audio stream to a headset. Obviously the data is getting there somehow but I suspect it is not (directly) via windows. Dose anyone know if the radio hardware for bluetooth is connected to the radio hardware for the phone? My guess is that if you could write a program that windows "sees" as a headset then you could get the audio that way. But thats a problem in itself.
I would love this kind of program myself. How is it that such usefull devices with so many capeabilities can be kept secret from us. We can't use the camera, we can't get the cell id on towers, we can't programatically controll the partnerships in blutooth, we cant get the audio stream of our own phone, the events on some ppc's that control brightness are secret..... the list goes on. This kind of #@!!$$ is going to hurt the future of these devices which I otherwise love.

OdeeanRDeathshead: I had read your previous posts, and as ever, very interesting and informative reading. I had the same idea regarding a "dummy" bluetooth device a while back, but mamaich put me in my place!
http://forum.xda-developers.com/viewtopic.php?p=179839#179839
V

thanks vijay555, thats what I have suspected about the hardware. What I want to do is a bit different. The bluetooth can communicate to many devices at once. If your program could appear to be a headset to the os, then the phone bluetooth hardware could transmit the audio to the headset at the same time your program uses bluetooth to receive it. Kind of like a loop out of the box to bridge the lack of functionality. This shifts the problem to how dose a hardware bluetooth headset communicate. Emulate this and we are on a winner. I don't think I have the willingness to pull my devices appart. I also do not have the money for some of the hardware (eg good digital oscilliscope) that I would need to measure whats going on. I did read that microsoft are about to expose some new api to allow control over the pairing process (but not the audio stream). I hope that we get some soon.
Is there going to be any new (for 2005) free development tools like the evc versions used today?

OdeeanRDeathshead: re eVC, I don't think so. The "express editions" are free, but they specifically omit the functionality to develop "mobile solutions".
Re the loop back. That's a good idea. I think mamaich is our best bet on schematics, I think that would be very helpful. As you "rave", it's mindboggling that Microsoft still haven't revealed or implemented a way to interact with the audio channels. It must have been one of the first things one could imagine doing once you develop a PDA with a phone stuck on the back of it.
Any idea if the bluetooth stacks could support transmitting and receiving simultaneously in this manner? I know some of the boys are working on alternative bluetooth support for the stereo headset profiles, so they might be able to shed some light on the issues involved. I guess the processor overhead could be hefty, but for the benefit it would be beneficial.
V

wmirc client question: which one? Smartphone or Pocket PC?

I got most stuff working, except the stupid BT headset! (which is stopping me from trying VoIP functions....) The stowaway folding keyboard is in particualr a star accessory - works great and is actually faster than my normal aux laptop keyboard! As for "messengering" while walking in the dark across a field - both the built in and the virtual keyboard (the regular, not an accessory, were both very useful, although I think the virtual one was actually a little faster...
GPS receiver was the first device to be recognized - but I still haven't chosen any GPS software to make use of it - might try the "I" one or tom-tom...not sure yet
Aside from fighting with the BT headset, which is also putting up a fight on the laptop and so may have a problem in of itself... my next project is a decent chat client. Several recommended wmirc, especially the 2.0 version, and I want to get it. But aside from paying for it, which is cool - I sent the guy with mIRC a donation since I use that one a lot - wmirc wants you to choose versions - "smartphone" or "pocket pc", with no further description as to what qualifies as what. I sent them an email but have heard nothing - so what's the opinion? Should I get the "smartphone" version or the "pocket PC" one? I've heard both terms used to describe the better PDA's like the Wizard during my 2 weeks of research that led to me choosing the MDA....

the pocket pc version

Bluetooth vulnerability.....Be careful!!

Guys/Gals....
I might be slow to know about this, so I figured some others here might be too. No disrespect intended, but I watched a program this weekend 'The Real Hustle' on British TV. It explored a serious vulnerability in the Bluetooth technology.
Apparently there exists software which can be installed on O/S based Mobile phones/PPC's that allow its user to scan for BT devices i.e. in busy areas like train stations etc.
They can then hijack your phone..'Without Your Knowledge'!! They can then use your available credit/contract minutes, to make calls to a purpose made premium number @ £1.50 per minute....all without leaving a trace on your phone!
You won't know until you get your whopping bill and will have no way out of paying for it, as calls will have registered as having been made from your phone!
Bottom line for Athena users with BT earpieces and other people too. ONLY switch your BT on when you are going to use it and be sure to switch it right back off when you're finished.
The program did not reveal whether this was possible if the devices/BT mode was set to invisible, but that is something I intend to find out.
Scary eh?
P.S. Something like this happened to a relative of mine only last week as his BT is always on (for phone calls). Just thought I'd share my concerns with you. Sorry if its old news already.

Yup, old news I'm afriad. The Ameo AFAIK and can test, seems to have a fairly sturdy bluetooth stack, as do most phones from the last 18months - 2years. But it is quite surprising how many phones are vulnerable to various bluetooth exploits. I have found that its not impossible to crash the BT stack, but its not trivial, and doesn't really seem to do too much damage, apart from requiring a restart of the BT module. Unlike my old T68 which locks up tighter than a locked up tight thing, gives out my contacts and calendar, make calls e.t.c.
Oh, and I generally leave the BT off on the Ameo because its such a battery drain.

Digital.Diablo said:
Yup, old news I'm afriad. The Ameo AFAIK and can test, seems to have a fairly sturdy bluetooth stack, as do most phones from the last 18months - 2years. But it is quite surprising how many phones are vulnerable to various bluetooth exploits. I have found that its not impossible to crash the BT stack, but its not trivial, and doesn't really seem to do too much damage, apart from requiring a restart of the BT module. Unlike my old T68 which locks up tighter than a locked up tight thing, gives out my contacts and calendar, make calls e.t.c.
Oh, and I generally leave the BT off on the Ameo because its such a battery drain.
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Click to collapse
Thanks for that Diablo. So what you are saying is that newer devices (like our) with newer BT stacks are NOT vulnerable to these attacks? Only the older types of mobile phones?

Is the hidden option didn't make any difference?

I have tested a couple of "available" software.
Generally it is quite trivial to establish a connection with older mobiles phones. SonyEricssons seem to be particularly vulnerable.
I haven't been able to successfully intercept the Athena though. Although I have many shortcomings in my very limited abilities... I'm sure a dedicated person would be able to intercept and <do whatever> given enough time.
Normally it should be enough to enable "Beam authentication" and uncheck "Make this device visible to other devices".

mackaby007 said:
Thanks for that Diablo. So what you are saying is that newer devices (like our) with newer BT stacks are NOT vulnerable to these attacks? Only the older types of mobile phones?
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I wouldn't go as far as to say they're invulnerable, however they're stronger than other targets. Bluetooth in itself is quite basic in its security mechanisms, but Ameo stands up well to attack. As mentioned, its possible to crash the stack, but this doesn't bring any benefit to the attacker, apart from the knowledge that they've been able to do that. I suppose it could be used as a buffer overflow exploit, but with so few devices around, its probably not worth the effort to try.
One thing TO be aware of though is that when pairing a device, its possible for a 3rd party to grab the keys off the air, and then you can impersonate a bluetooth device. So if someone were to capture a key pairing between a mobile and a laptop for the laptop to be able to make internet connections via the phone, then you could impersonate the laptop to make these calls. But this is fairly unlikely if the phones are already paired. However, the cool thing is, if you've got a vulnerable phone, you can make it loose the pair key, when Mr End User resync's the phone, snap it out of the air and do naughty things. I work in Network Security so I try and experiment with these things for the good of our staff, and bluetooth hacking is one of the cooler things IMO.
Oh, another cool point is that people think bluetooth is 10m or 100m radius. Some researchers have managed to send a bluetooth message about 3km (I think).
And finally, the other thing you can do to really bug someone is repeatedly make bluetooth requests to their phone for 'services available'. Most phones will provide this without pairing, and in doing so, it can generally cause the power consumption to increase. Once again, I killed my T68 with this technique in about 2hrs from full charge, as each time it made the request, the screen redrew, the backlight and key led's came on and I suspect the radio power draw increased.

WM5 and espicially 6 are practically safe

Done a bit of research on this now and coupled with your feedback guys, I feel Athena owners are pretty safe from random attacks. Thanks a bunch for putting my mind at ease...I will however remain cautious in public areas and turn my bluetooth off if I am spending a considerable amount of time there.

The fact is that the only way this vulnerability works is by exploiting the Symbian Bluetooth stack for now. Conversely, WM is one of the more secure O/S's out there at present. WM6 is even more so. There's a lot of snakeoil within the industry, although with the Ameo, I would look into getting AV if you plan on doing a lot of downloading off the web. Yes, there is no serious malware for the WM platform, but the device can still be a carrier for the host Windows systems. As HSDPA becomes more widespread, the benefits fo attacking these platforms becomes greater; it's not there yet but will become an issue.

mackaby007 said:
Done a bit of research on this now and coupled with your feedback guys, I feel Athena owners are pretty safe from random attacks. Thanks a bunch for putting my mind at ease...I will however remain cautious in public areas and turn my bluetooth off if I am spending a considerable amount of time there.
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Click to collapse
It should* be enough to disable visibility. If need BT for your headset but care about battery drain just enable powersafe mode for the audio gateway in the registry.
I'm running bluetooth all the time on my ameo. I'm around a lot on public areas like train stations and airports and every now and then I'm using btCrawler to scan for other devices just to see how many are in visibile mode.
So the best practicefor using bluetooth (on laptops, handhelds or whatever) is:
- Turn off visibility
- Use encryption AND authentication for every connection
- Don't accept messages or transfers from unknown devices
- Don't use easy PINs like 0000 or 1234
- Use different PINs for every connection
If you follow the above, using bluetooth should* be safe
* Should, because if an attacker knows your device address, he's still able to try to attack you directly. There is an interesting article by Max Moser about using the expensive (but excellent) Bluetooth Diagnostic Tool from Fronline (FTS4BT) with a normal inexpensive bluetooth dongle. Using this you are able to sniff bluetooth connections by following the hopping sequence. You can sniff audio connections, data transfers, etc. If no encryption is enabled everthing is tranfered in plaintext. However it is still possible to decrypt encrypted BT traffic if you are able to sniff the pairing process. If you have successfully sniffed the whole pairing process you can extract the link key and PIN with btcrack and then use the frontline sniffer to decrypt the traffic.

Will pay for Bluetooth extension enhancement Program

Is there anyone here than can build a similar program to that of Jetware but for Windows Mobile 6 Devices both smartphone and PDA.
I have a Garmin Nuvi 660FM and with Jetware 1.31 I can get all functions working bar the SMS Reader (which also has the ability to read messages via the TTS Function).
Basically what I would like is a program built into a cab installer than can enable all the fuctions of the Garmin Nuvi and Tomtom devices that have bluetooth car kits built in that also support SMS.
I would be willing to pay anyone for a program such as this.

me too, pleeeease
(ciao)

Same here. The guy that made the extension for the bluetooth sony ericsson watches might be able to adapt it to work with other devices. I tried bringing it up to him, but it seems he ignored my post...

up! up! uP!

NRGZ28 said:
Same here. The guy that made the extension for the bluetooth sony ericsson watches might be able to adapt it to work with other devices. I tried bringing it up to him, but it seems he ignored my post...
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The problem is I dont have any of these devices. I have never seen such thing. And most probably I wont even buy such device because I dont like spending money on cars and car accessories. (I like gadgets that fit into my pocket)

These devices use the same protocols as the watch you wrote your software for. I'd like to program my own little app to interface with all the GPS devices that use those features as well as all the bluetooth car stereos out there. Would you be willing to share some tips, or maybe even source code from your software to help me out with this ?

The BT watch uses a lot of Sony Ericsson specific commands.
You have to find commands that sends the GPS unit - so you may use Windows Mobile with configurated virtual COM and some Terminal software to read the commands.

I believe the GPS units (as well as many car stereos, including mine) actually use the Handsfree profile to send these commands back and forth. The jetware extension has a logging mode where you can see a huge log of all these commands that go on between the phone and unit (whatever it may be). Would it be possible to adapt your application to talk over the handsfree profile ? I think the way jetware did it, is they put a dll between the audiogateway on the phone and device, to intercept all the communication.

The handsfree profile shouldn't be much problem I hope. Try to make some commands log and we will see...

Well guys I dont know much about programming but if you need help or can guide me to getting info I will no probs.
Also I will make a donation to help with the costs and as a thank you for any help.

It's been a while since I've programmed anything, but I'm thinking about writing an application similar to moneytoo's in .NET that will take over where jetware's extension stopped.

Any joy guys ?

I still have money up for grabs for whoever can develop this

I still have money too.

Up up! More money from me also!

The problem with this is the way that Windows Mobile (and the like) handle it's OBEX push abilities..
I have.. searched... called... and looked at so many webpages my eyes started to bleed.
OFFICIAL Garmin 660 (and other) bluetooth supported profile information..
https://www.bluetooth.org/qualweb/ProductDetails.cfm?ProductID=3324
Interesting to note. 90% of the phones out there don't work with the SMS funtion. We can get everything else to work (using the various patches and hacks availible on this web site) But SMS/TEXT alluded me.
Like I said, I narrowed it down to the fact that WM devices handle OPEX/Sync a little differently.. We don't support the classic "Server/Client" mode that the Sony phones do. It's these two that confound me..
- OPP-Server
- Sync-Client
Both are subsets of the Generic Object Exchange Profile (GOEP),.
I found patches, programs and the like that allow these two functions in a fashion.. But I also think the stupid Garmin Software looks at the POD file (informs what functions are avail) for specific phone types that are supported.. Or it could be that our phones just don't report the exact information that the Garmin is looking for, so it just disables the whole thing.
Either way. If someone wants to take a crack at this who has a more experence then me.. PLEASE DO. There is about 40,000 people with this stupid problem and they've all gone nuts..
PS Installing the Widcomm stack does not resolve this problem either.. I spent a week trying too get that @#$%#$%@# thing to work correctly on my wizard.

Well I am prepared to donate USD $100 towards costs to anyone who can develop a working solution, I think other people here also would donate towards a working product.
Thanks for the info and work so far

NRGZ28 said:
I believe the GPS units (as well as many car stereos, including mine) actually use the Handsfree profile to send these commands back and forth. The jetware extension has a logging mode where you can see a huge log of all these commands that go on between the phone and unit (whatever it may be). Would it be possible to adapt your application to talk over the handsfree profile ? I think the way jetware did it, is they put a dll between the audiogateway on the phone and device, to intercept all the communication.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
If i could get a copy of that log it would help trememndously.

I'll send it in a minute.

Guys, any update on this?