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justmoon
0
Aug 31, 2015
In case this saves somebody a bit of time: My laptop's built-in Bluetooth is a bit flakey on Linux, so I wondered if I could turn this keyboard into more of a dongle-type wireless keyboard (think Logitech Unifying).
Turns out, you can. There are Bluetooth dongles supporting "HID proxy" mode which basically means they'll connect to a Bluetooth keyboard and/or mouse and expose it to the host OS as a USB keyboard/mouse.
I have not tried this yet (waiting for my VB87M), but it appears that a Laird BT820 dongle will work in HID proxy mode for BLE devices. You can also switch it over to HCI mode under Windows 8 or Linux (don't know about Mac, didn't check) to hand off control to the OS if you like.
mangix
43
Sep 4, 2015
justmoonWould love to hear if that adapter works out for you. I need something like that so I can put the USB dongle on a KVM without re-pairing constantly.
justmoon
0
Oct 13, 2015
mangixSo I've received the keyboard and the BT820 dongle. It was quite a process to turn the dongle into HID proxy mode. You have to register on the lairdtech.com website, download a zip file with some assorted stuff, find a copy of CSR BlueSuite (normally only available for OEMs, but can be found by googling) and flash some firmware patches. End result is that now I have a dongle which immediately pairs with the Varmilo once it has power and appears as a USB Composite Device (including a keyboard) on every OS I've tried. (Windows 10 & Ubuntu 15.10)
I couldn't use the keyboard in BIOS yet - not sure why. It might be that my BIOS doesn't understand a composite device. Media keys also don't work yet. Right now I feel confident that with some more tweaking I could resolve both issues.
ZeroByZero
0
Dec 1, 2018
justmoonDo you have to type any password in the Varmilo to pair it when using bluetooth? The reason for my question is that I have a Filco Majestouch Convertible and it requires a password, so I don't know if the HID proxy model would work with it. I read that it's only valid for devices that don't require authentification. Regards
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