Broadcom / Widcomm Bluetooth Stack on Treo 750

I've recently purchased a BT-359 bluetooth GPS receiver. It looks sweet -- and it'll look even sweeter once its little blue light is blinking quickly indicating that its paired with my Treo 750.

I strongly believe the issue lies with the MS bluetooth stack, and I very much want to upgrade to the Broadcom / Widcomm stack. There are very active boards in all the other phone forums talking about porting a version of this vastly superior stack to their hardware platforms -- I'd like to make this the call for someone to do the same for the Treo 750. Better yet, I'd like to add this thread as a call to Broadcom to charge each of us $20 for something that should have been included in our phones in the first place - I'll hapily pay it.

If anyone has any ideas for getting the Braodcom / Widcomm stack working on a Treo 750 then please post it here. My entire day of internet searching has me confident that there are many Treo 750 users who will appreciate it.

I'll post my sob story below - happy hacking.

As I mentioned above (in the opening post of ths thread) I've got a vested interest in finding a way to get the Broadcom / Widcomm stack onto my Treo 750.

Alright, I've now submitted a support ticket to GlobalSat (they only do "selective" telephone support). I've also tried several other work arounds that have necessitated several hard resets of my device. I'll list a few of the solutions I've tried below, so that other frustrated users can hopefully save themselves a few steps (and headaches). Before I start this, i've got to give a plug for Sprite Backup which has made the process of trail and error bearable. I've got several work apps installed (most painfaully mNotes) which are a chore to re-configure. I'm glad that Sprite was around to restore my handheld after each of these solution attempts. Things I tried:

1. From Aximsite, I installed the Broadcom Bluetooth StackX51V05.cab -- I tried this file first because it had worked for several Dell Axim users trying to pair the same BT-359. It was also attractive to me because it provided me a path out of the MS bluetooth stack and into the Broadcom / Widcomm bluetooth stack, while also offering an uninstall option. The program installed easily, I made a couple registry tweaks suggested at Axim site, and I performed a soft reset. When the phone re-booted, i received a error informing me that I didn't have enough driver memory to load the Bluetooth Radio. I downloaded a task manager and turned off everything I could, all to no avail. Finally, I had a hunch that perhaps the Axim bluetooth was operating on a different hardware COM port, so I tried setting the registry settings for the new Broadcom driver to 0 through 9 (rebooting after each setting change) to see if that would work. In the end, nothing worked. I did get access to the broadcom interface and I can definitively say that there are far more options available in that driver than in the MS driver. I can also say that, from what I read, consensus is that the braodcom driver is far superior to the MS driver.

2. Next, from this site (XDA developers), I tried the BBS_HERMES_03.zip, and the Helmi_Hima_BroadComm_1.7.6.0500.ZIP both of which have been developped by Hemli_c who is aparently the god of this stuff. Both yielded control panels that looked similar to the Axim site solution, however neither of them worked - they both gave the same memory error. I played around with many more registry settings here trying to get them to work, again, without any luck. These were the most detailed instructions I found - I'm happy to give tips to anyone trying to better my results. http://xdaforums.com/showthread.php?t=285696
3. Next, I became very interested about the WM6 "cooked roms" which are available on XDA. Now this is where I really wish the Treo folks were more geeky (or I had the time to figure it out myself). The other hardware platforms all have SEVERAL WM6 implimentations cooked up, each touting the best mix of CAB add-ons (including the broadcom bluetooth driver). I downloaded Helmi_c's, but it wouldn't work on my Treo (I did learn that to get into bootloader mode on the 750, you need to hold the side button while you press the reset button inside the SD card door). This was a bit of a nerve racking procedure, as I was convinced Sprite couldn't bail me out of that mess -- i was half thankful when the ROM refused to load (although I am excited to get WM6 loaded on my phone).

4. Finally, I sent another support request to GlobalSat in hopes that I'd get a response. I'm very excited to get this toy working, and this messing around is finally starting to get past the fun stage, to the genuinely annoying stage. I'm actually starting to think that I might not be able to get it to work (at first I just thought it'd be a challenge that would be kind of fun).

If anyone has any questions, or suggestions, I'd be glad to hear them.

I'll post again as I find out more.

First of all, an update on USGlobalSat... they aren't winning any points so far. In response to my query about their GPS receiver not pairing with my Treo 750 I got the following response:


Now onto some more positive news. I had some temporary success with one of Helmi's Bluetooth stacks for the Universal. The specific file I loaded was either UNIBR176.0500.zip or UNSIGN_UNI1.7.6.0500.zip.. I'm not sure which (I'll post again with the exact process).

The process and files worked perfectly for about 18 glorious hours. My GPS paired, my stereo headset paired, and everything seemed to be working perfectly. The next morning, everything was still working perfectly. When I went to leave work (and use my GPS to find a restaurant), I couldn't power on the bluetooth radio. Whenever I clicked on the bluetooth button, I once again got the "insufficient driver memory to start bluetooth radio" error. I hadn't added or modified anything since the night before (I was afraid to mess anything up).

I have just returned from dinner and am in the process of restoring a Sprite backup (which I love) and will try to recreate my success. I'll report back tonight, and again in 24hrs -- hopefully this time the solution is longer lasting.

Frustratingly, I'm back to getting the memory error below. Even if I hard reset, and JUST load up the bluetooth driver (none of my other apps) it no longer works. It must have been a complete fluke that it worked for those 18hrs. I'm going to try again tonight - recording my steps exactly - in hopes that it either works, or that someone can pinpoint my error.

I am fairly sure that the fact that this installation was designed for another device isn't helping me get this working - hopefully I'll stumble across the solution.

ok, I've made some progress and will try and summarize here (sorry for the slow reply). These things are listed in this order for a reason, if I don't do them in order, then the driver won't load:

1. Hard Reset Palm
2. Install mNotes (to device)
3. Install Google Maps (to storage card)
4. Install Sprite Backup (greatest program ever) (to storage card)
5. Install Braodcom Bluetooth Stack (see procedure and file location above) (to device)

If I install Google after I install the bluetooth stack, I get the out of memory error (and I couldn't correct it using SDK tools). Also, this setup is kind of finicky about soft resets, occasionally the bluetooth driver won't load, but this is resolved by simply resetting the device.

Things that don't work (that did work under old stack):

• Bluetooth Activesync
• Voice calls through my sony stereo bluetooth headset

Things that now work that didn't work before

1. My bluetooth GPS receiver now works
2. Stereo quality from MP3s is vastly improved (noticeably)

Hopefully someone will come up with a Broadcom stack designed specifically for the Treo 750 - I'd pay for it.

If ayone else has any tips, please post here.

Thanks,
Gavin

sorry this response took a while. I did not do any tweaking beyond what I described above. Sorry I can't be of more assistance.

I've been working with the Broadcom stack installed for almost two months now - I have several ups and downs I can report.

The Good

• The driver itself loads after 90% of hard resets (when it doesn't load, another hard reset gets it to load -- this is strange)
• My Bluetooth GPS receiver works (the original reason for me trying to use the stack
• My stereo headset works for listening to music and TV shows
• I've got a bunch of software installed and I'm not getting out of memory errors (mNotes, google maps, tom tom, bee line, TCPMP, Sprite Backup, PDAnet)
• Association/Discovery is UBER painless, I turn on the headset or the GPS receiver and they pair with the phone without any fuss.
• No dropped connections

The Bad

• Listening to the bluetooth headset with the bluetooth GPS receiver connected and feeding data to either tom tom or google maps is unbearable - 50% of the music is dropped
• Activesync over bluetooth doesn't work
• I haven't been able to get the phone paired with my computer to use the phone as a bluetooth modem (using junefabrics PDAnet)
• My stereo bluetooth headset works fine for audio (some skipping and not great sound, but it works)... however it no longer works for making calls - as soon as I try and make a call it is dumbed to the handheld.