New device, no bluetooth

Hello, having a tricky time with new Bangle2
First off watch wouldn't boot up when I received it, had to factory reset it first.

The charger port doesn't have a very strong connection, the magentic thing.

But my issue is I cannot get it to show up in bluetooth on any PC. I'm trying to get it to connect so I can install apps.

Sometimes it appears randomly for a second or two then drops.

I cant find any instructions on this either.

Any help appreciated.

Sounds like you use Windows?

If you run some linux distro, you may be hitting a variation of this: https://forum.espruino.com/conversations­/388952/

Hi - do you remember what it did when you first received it instead of not working? It should boot up to a 'welcome screen'.

The charger is handed - it should pull itself on to the watch one way around but if the magnets are pushing it away from the watch you shouldn't force it on as that means it's on backwards. Do you think it's possible that's what happened?

For the bluetooth connection:

What colour is the bluetooth icon in the top right of the Bangle's screen? If it's blue that probably means another computer is connected to your Bangle. If you chose to 'pair' in the OS Bluetooth menu, that might mean that the particular computer automatically connects to it as soon as it appears - and depending on the OS it may mean that the Web Browser is then unable to see the device despite the fact the OS is connected.

That would fit with "Sometimes it appears randomly for a second or two" because it's appearing but then the PC is connecting to it which stops it being connected to be another device.

If the icon is grey, have you tried connecting with a phone? That's not what you should have to do, but my experience is that usually Bluetooth on phones 'just works'

Gordon, thank you for your reply.

When it first arrived, it only booted to a screen that said Bangle.js with a logo looking like a bangle.js 1, and it said copyright G Williams. It would never leave that screen no matter how I booted or how many times I booted, or how long I left it there on that screen. I only got a welcome screen after factory resetting the device, which was odd for me since it was brand new ordered from the espruino site, with all the packaging intact. It looked like the pictures posted here: https://forum.espruino.com/conversations­/378516/

The charger magentic is going in correctly, it simply has a very weak pull, almost not anything actually. It is extremely sensitive trying to get it to charge. Like I said, the magnetic pull is very weak, almost none at all. Compared to a shocks opencomm headset charger which I'm use to, where the magnetic connection is solid. The banglejs2 charger is so weak that unless I prop the phone up and align the charger just perfectly, it won't engage. It may try but it will continue to vibrate back and forth "charge", "not charging", "charging", "not charging", etc. EDIT: Upon inspecting the connection points, they were either nearly covered with paint, or corrosion. After scrapping them clean, the charger stays connected MUCH better. Again, very odd for a new device one would think.

As for bluetooth, I was unable to get it to pair with either windows or linux. Keep in mind this was attempting to pair via windows bluetooth area, or on linux using bluetoothctl. I did however get it to pair using chrome on windows, via the browser. I loaded a few apps this way. But I was hoping I could connect to it directly , not using a browser to do so, especially since I want to develop my own apps.

Argh, I'm sorry about this. It looks like a few weeks ago I updated the firmware we put on the Bangles so it automatically booted to the recovery menu and had a way to perform tests in it, but at that point the person preparing the Bangles started using that menu to trigger testing instead of our usual method, and so the factory reset didn't get done automatically.

We've just checked and it looks like it only happened to a few Bangles, but I'm afraid yours was one of those. Your Bangle should be absolutely fine, it's had the tests done, but unfortunately it didn't have that factory reset step (which you had to do yourself) - so I'm really sorry about that.

On the charger front - did your Bangle have a bit of black tape over the middle two contacts of the charge connector when you got it? They should usually have that, and that stops the corrosion from happening (it's caused by a small voltage on the 2rd pin from the right, which is for low level programming).

It's usually stuck on pretty well but it is possible that it has come off. If it isn't there it'd definitely be worth covering it up again as without that pin covered, the other pins do start to corrode (info here). It's unfortunate but it's a side-effect of having those SWD debug pins available on the back so you can completely change the software on the watch if you want to.

And good news on the Bluetooth - that sounds expected. The watch will pair with the OS, but not in its default state.

The issue is that Bluetooth Low Energy doesn't have a generic Communications Port profile (unlike 'classic' Bluetooth), so Windows in particular doesn't think it's a device it can do anything with, and so doesn't show it in the pairing list.

Bangle.js implements something called 'Nordic UART' which is about as close to a standard for a communications port as you get in Bluetooth LE.

For developing apps, I'd still recommend https://www.espruino.com/ide/ - yes, it's in the browser, but it does 'just work' and is pretty friendly for developing normal-size apps.

However if you do want to use command-line, there is an espruino package available from NPM which handles communcations from the CLI: https://www.npmjs.com/package/espruino

On Linux it should work nicely once you use the line mentioned here to give Node.js bluetooth priviledges, or Windows can be a bit tricky to get Bluetooth working with on the command-line so you can leave a browser window open (on that, or another device) to get the bluetooth communications and you can then use the CLI to communicate through that: https://www.npmjs.com/package/espruino#w­eb-ide-remote-connection

Awesome! Thanks for reply. Yes there is black tape on there. Good to hear everything with mine is working as it should. I'm going to check out those links you gave. I think I saw something about serial connection somewhere as well?

Do you know if I can make the watch beep? Is it possible to install a speaker or something inside? I don't always notice the buzz. Or can I pair it with a bluetooth headset? And hear the beeps through there?

Ok, great!

There's no physical serial connection to the watch so you have to do everything through Bluetooth LE normally, but there are some examples of using bluetooth and that 'Nordic UART' protocol (effectively serial) from various programming languages at: https://www.espruino.com/Interfacing#blu­etooth-le

The SWD (serial wire debug) pins (https://www.espruino.com/Interfacing#blu­etooth-le) are for super low level stuff (if you start changing the C code of the interpreter) and while there is such a thing as serial-over-swd it's not something Bangle.js supports yet as it's a bit of a pain to set up!

The watch doesn't have a speaker but it can make some very feint sounds using the vibration motor. I'm afraid it can't pair with Bluetooth headsets either - generally they all use classic Bluetooth and not Bluetooth Low Energy.

Generally when messages arrive and alarms go off, the pattern of buzzing is configurable though. If the buzzing is hard to notice you might find changing the pattern to something like 3 long buzzes makes it a lot more obvious

I notice the buzzing most of the time... its when I'm really focused on something, usually physical in nature, and I miss it. Overall though, its working well and doing what I need it to. I would like to change the colors of the clock I'm using though. But Ill probably need to just make my own to get it perfect.

Uhm by the way, I notice it says not to swim with it, but I've been doing so without issue. Wondering if I should knock that off or since its still going strong then nothing to worry about. Usually only for about 15 minutes at a time.

Anything in the works for a bangle 3? I noticed theres some micro controllers on the shop and curious what direction things are going.

Wondering if I should knock that off or since its still going strong then nothing to worry about

Yes, I'd try and avoid swimming with it (particularly regularly). While they're designed to put up with being immersed in a shallow depth for short periods, when you're moving your hands through the water the pressures experienced can far exceed what it's designed for.

It might be working now, but if even a tiny bit of water gets through each time, that's going to build up over time and cause you problems

Anything in the works for a bangle 3?

Not at the moment - I'm just about to receive another big batch of Bangle.js 2 so the idea is to keep with that for the moment. Espruino started off as a way to program microcontrollers, so Bangle.js is a bit of a departure from that - the next device (coming in a few months I hope) is actually a microcontroller with motor drivers on it, so you can use it to control motors/steppers/lights without having to solder anything.

Eventually there may be a Bangle.js 3 but I'm not working on it right now - the issue really is it'd be nice to do something entirely custom, but there's an awful lot of investment needed for that - which I'm not entirely sure would be repaid by sales at the moment.