android - can generic Bluetooth dongle be used for printers that support printing over Bluetooth?

Question

I have tried using a Bluetooth dongle (Advik) with my "KodakESP-3+2445" printer. I have created an Android client to connect to this printer. I select a UUID for OPP (Object Push Profile) and was able to obtain a BluetoothSocket and 'socket.write' a file to the printer. However, no print out was obtained from the printer.

I tried other Bluetooth UUID such as (BIP, BPP, Direct Printing, SPP etc), but socket connection fails for each of these profiles, except OPP (Object Push Profile).

I visited the Kodak store for the "KODAK Wireless 2.0 USB BLUETOOTH Adapter" at (http://store.kodak.com/store/ekconsus/en_US/pd/Wireless_USB_2.0_BLUETOOTH_Adapter/baseProductID.145081200/productID.145081300), and noticed that certain bluetooth profiles ( OPP, BIP, and FTP) were supported with the bluetooth adapter itself.

Can a normal bluetooth dongle be used to connect to printers that support Bluetooth printing?

Or would I have to procure a specialized Bluetooth adapter to support these Bluetooth profiles ( OPP, BIP, FTP etc)?

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For Bluetooth profile support to be implemented on Android, there is a project called “Sybase-iAnywhere-Blue-SDK-for-Android”, which replaces Android's version, and provides all interfaces into the underlying Bluetooth profiles and protocols. Using this, printing over bluetooth using your Android phone will be possible using the BPP profile provided by this SDK.

See links below for more details:

link 1: http://www.sybase.com/detail?id=1064424

Link 2: http://www.sybase.com/products/allproductsa-z/mobiledevicesdks/bluetoothsdks

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I also contacted the Kodak Technical support team inquiring, whether any generic Bluetooth dongle can be attached to the Kodak ESP-3 printer to enable Bluetooth wireless printing.

Here's the answer I received:

"For wireless printing you can only use a KODAK Wireless 2.0 USB BLUETOOTH? Adapter as no other BLUETOOTH Adapter is supported by your KODAK All in One Printer."

However, as per my comment added above, I was able to print from a Nokia device to the Kodak printer, using a generic Bluetooth dongle.

Caveat:

I tried with 2 generic Bluetooth dongles. One (Advik) would not work with the device. (This dongle does not let the printer be discovered by bluetooth discovery, and the LED light of the dongle, was in a constant ON position and not the normal blinking frequency).

The other Bluetooth dongle I tried (another generic off-the-shelf BT dongle), however did work with the printer i.e, The printer could be 'found' with Bluetooth discovery, and I was able to print a jpg file from a Nokia device using this dongle.

Hope this helps somebody.

Answer 1

Oh wait I see the problem. OPP, FTP, BPP etc are all OBEX-based (aka GOEP), and that is a 'protocol' a wee bit like HTTP. One can't just send raw bytes to an OBEX server.