How to pair bluettoth devices in general and the Logitech K480 bluetooth multi-device keyboard in particular on Armbian (Orange Pi Plus2)
1bluetoothctl
Run the following commands:
[bluetooth]# agent off
[bluetooth]# agent KeyboardOnly
[bluetooth]# scan on
[bluetooth]# pair 34:XX:XX:XX:D8:F3
[bluetooth]# trust 34:XX:XX:XX:D8:F3
[bluetooth]# connect 34:XX:XX:XX:D8:F3
The key here is KeyboardOnly. Logitech K480 requires a pairing key to be typed on the keyboard, and for some reason it wasn’t showing in the GUI. KeyboardOnly let’s you do the complete pairing and connection process using keyboard input.
Here are the commands with their outputs:
[bluetooth]# agent off
Agent unregistered
[bluetooth]# agent KeyboardOnly
Agent registered
[bluetooth]# scan on
Discovery started
[CHG] Controller 00:15:83:0C:BF:EB Discovering: yes
[NEW] Device 3 34:XX:XX:XX:D8:F3 Keyboard K480
[bluetooth]# pair 34:XX:XX:XX:D8:F3
Attempting to pair with 34:XX:XX:XX:D8:F3
[CHG] Device 34:XX:XX:XX:D8:F3 Connected: yes
[agent] PIN code: 870577
[CHG] Device 34:XX:XX:XX:D8:F3 Modalias: usb:v046DpB33Dd2803
[CHG] Device 34:XX:XX:XX:D8:F3 UUIDs: 00001000-0000-1000-8000-00805f9b34fb
[CHG] Device 34:XX:XX:XX:D8:F3 UUIDs: 00001124-0000-1000-8000-00805f9b34fb
[CHG] Device 34:XX:XX:XX:D8:F3 UUIDs: 00001200-0000-1000-8000-00805f9b34fb
[CHG] Device 34:XX:XX:XX:D8:F3 Paired: yes
Pairing successful
[bluetooth]# connect 34:XX:XX:XX:D8:F3
Attempting to connect to 34:XX:XX:XX:D8:F3
[CHG] Device 34:XX:XX:XX:D8:F3 Connected: yes
Connection successful
[Keyboard K480]#
You can now see info about your connected device like so:
[bluetooth]# info 34:88:5D:97:D8:F3
Device 34:88:5D:97:D8:F3
Name: Keyboard K480
Alias: Keyboard K480
Class: 0x000540
Icon: input-keyboard
Paired: yes
Trusted: yes
Blocked: no
Connected: yes
LegacyPairing: no
UUID: Service Discovery Serve.. (00001000-0000-1000-8000-00805f9b34fb)
UUID: Human Interface Device... (00001124-0000-1000-8000-00805f9b34fb)
UUID: PnP Information (00001200-0000-1000-8000-00805f9b34fb)
Modalias: usb:v046DpB33Dd2803
So far so good. But a day later, i find out that you have to either click a prompt to allow the keyboard connection, or you won’t see any prompts and the keyboard won’t connect. Kind of frustrating when you have already put away that wired keyboard. The quick and dirty solution i could think of was to create a bash script that runs code to connect the keyboard and make it automatically run at startup.
1nano bluetooth_device_connect.sh
Copy this code to the file, replacing the MAC address value with the MAC address of your own device
1#!/bin/bash
2
3MAC='34:88:5D:97:D8:F3' # MAC address of Bluetooth device
4
5# Proceeding with the assumption that the device is already paired & trusted
6
7bluetoothctl << EOF
8connect ${MAC}
9EOF
10
11# chmod a+x script.sh # Make it executable
12# chmod 777 script.sh # Give it universal rights (saves you to write sudo every time)
13# Make script run automatically at startup
14# https://github.com/OpenLabTools/OpenLabTools/wiki/Launching-bash-scripts-at-startup
Make the script executable and accessible
1chmod a+x bluetooth_device_connect.sh
2chmod 777 bluetooth_device_connect.sh
Add it to bash profile to execute automatically after login
1echo "
2# Connect Bluetooth Device on Login (e.g. Logitech K480)
3bash $HOME/Scripts/bluetooth_device_connect.sh" >> $HOME/.bashrc
NOTE: Bash looks for ~/.bashrc, ~/.bash_profile, ~/.bash_login, and ~/.profile, in that order, and reads and executes commands from the first one that exists and is readable. So, for example. if you have both a ~/.bashrc and a ~/.bash_profile, add the script to the ~/.bashrc file.
NOTE TO SELF: If you have no bluetooth dongle attached, the script will still run. Maybe update the script to check for attached bluetooth and then run?
Here’s the help for bluetoothctl and other interesting commands that you can use.
[bluetooth]# help
Available commands:
list List available controllers
show [ctrl] Controller information
select <ctrl> Select default controller
devices List available devices
paired-devices List paired devices
power <on/off> Set controller power
pairable <on/off> Set controller pairable mode
discoverable <on/off> Set controller discoverable mode
agent <on/off/capability> Enable/disable agent with given capability
default-agent Set agent as the default one
set-scan-filter-uuids [uuid1 uuid2 ...] Set scan filter uuids
set-scan-filter-rssi [rssi] Set scan filter rssi, and clears pathloss
set-scan-filter-pathloss [pathloss] Set scan filter pathloss, and clears rssi
set-scan-filter-transport [transport] Set scan filter transport
set-scan-filter-clear Clears discovery filter.
scan <on/off> Scan for devices
info [dev] Device information
pair [dev] Pair with device
trust [dev] Trust device
untrust [dev] Untrust device
block [dev] Block device
unblock [dev] Unblock device
remove <dev> Remove device
connect <dev> Connect device
disconnect [dev] Disconnect device
list-attributes [dev] List attributes
select-attribute <attribute> Select attribute
attribute-info [attribute] Select attribute
read Read attribute value
write <data=[xx xx ...]> Write attribute value
notify <on/off> Notify attribute value
register-profile <UUID ...> Register profile to connect
unregister-profile Unregister profile
version Display version
quit Quit program