BLE vs BlueZ compat.

Hi Rogerio,

What TI product are you referring specifically?

Hi Victor,

BLE support for Wilink 8. Today BlueZ 5.5 (first version with LE support), but as this req kernel 3.5+ I guess current workaround will require backporting to 3.2 to work with the AM335x PSP right?  

In the SDK roadmap mentioned in the wilink 8 customer presentation, it mentions "StoneStreet One BT Stack" for BLE. IS this available already or planned for the next PSP release? 

Any ETA for this?

Curious on the decision to go for the commercial Stone street stack over BlueZ. Please comment.

best 
David

Hi David,

Sorry for the late reply. Here's the reply from my colleague Sundeep:

• BLE support for Wilink 8. Today BlueZ 5.5 (first version with LE support), but as this req kernel 3.5+ I guess current workaround will require backporting to 3.2 to work with the AM335x PSP right?
  • [SUNDEEP] - yes

• In the SDK roadmap mentioned in the wilink 8 customer presentation, it mentions "StoneStreet One BT Stack" for BLE. IS this available already or planned for the next PSP release?
• Any ETA for this?
• Curious on the decision to go for the commercial Stone street stack over BlueZ. Please comment.
  • [SUNDEEP] –
  • From the SW roadmap with WL8 on Lunix, I can only say that in July we are going to have a SDK 05.08(or SDK 06.00) release in which we are going to have a basic support for BLE on StoneStreet One BT Stack. And in the next release of SDK 06.0x we are going to have more profiles supported for BLE which could be around September/October 2013. 
  • And StoneStreet One BT Stack  is going to be a Royalty free one.
  • But the problem is all this information is from the documents I have. I am not sure if something has changed.

Hi,

• Seem s a new Wilink8 release is just out with the slightly odd name "WL8 demo R8.1.1" (why demo?)

http://processors.wiki.ti.com/index.php/AM335x_WL8_release_download_page

• The Sitara SDK 06.00 release is also up. Anyone know more on planned/ETA for bumped linux kernels for am335x?

• BLE still seem unsupported as BlueZ is 4.98 and no signs of StoneStreet. Anyone with more info here?

• It would also be interesting to understand why TI decides to move from BlueZ to Stonestreet?

Thanks /d

Hi David,

• Seem s a new Wilink8 release is just out with the slightly odd name "WL8 demo R8.1.1" (why demo?)
  • WL8 is not officially released yet. Many things are still subject to change in the near future.
• The Sitara SDK 06.00 release is also up. Anyone know more on planned/ETA for bumped linux kernels for am335x?
  • In the latest SDK6 for AM335x platforms, we are supporting kernel 3.2.0. Do you have a specific kernel version that need particularly?
• BLE still seem unsupported as BlueZ is 4.98 and no signs of StoneStreet. Anyone with more info here?
  • BLE is currently unsupported because our firmware patch does not support it. We'll resume BLE support once Stonestreet software stack kicks in.
• It would also be interesting to understand why TI decides to move from BlueZ to Stonestreet?
  • This is a business decision.

Victor_Lin said:

• Seem s a new Wilink8 release is just out with the slightly odd name "WL8 demo R8.1.1" (why demo?)
  • WL8 is not officially released yet. Many things are still subject to change in the near future.
    • Understand, is there a roadmap and schedule available?
      
      
• The Sitara SDK 06.00 release is also up. Anyone know more on planned/ETA for bumped linux kernels for am335x?
  • In the latest SDK6 for AM335x platforms, we are supporting kernel 3.2.0. Do you have a specific kernel version that need particularly?
    • We'd prefer 3.5+ (pref. a major stable) as BlueZ 5.5 will work out of the box then.  
      
      
• BLE still seem unsupported as BlueZ is 4.98 and no signs of StoneStreet. Anyone with more info here?
  • BLE is currently unsupported because our firmware patch does not support it. We'll resume BLE support once Stonestreet software stack kicks in.
    • Got it. We actually backported and have BlueZ up and running with current firmwares, but it's alot of work to maintain with new SDK releases.
      
      
• It would also be interesting to understand why TI decides to move from BlueZ to Stonestreet?
  • This is a business decision.
    • I got some info that BlueZ might be harder to get certified / BT qualified. Could this be the case?

• Seem s a new Wilink8 release is just out with the slightly odd name "WL8 demo R8.1.1" (why demo?)
  • WL8 is not officially released yet. Many things are still subject to change in the near future.
    • Understand, is there a roadmap and schedule available?
• AN: The Reason this Release is called a Demo is because: A. This Release is based on BlueZ Stack which as you know from discussion above would not be productized or supported with WL8 & B. The WiLink 8 Modules and Kits that would be required to productized this Software is not available in the Catalog domain yet. The WL8 RTM (Release to Market) will be in October 2013. At this time, we will also Release an Updated R 8.1.1 Add ON Release for WL8 that including Beta Quality WiFi Driver and Stone Street One BT Stack.
  
• The Sitara SDK 06.00 release is also up. Anyone know more on planned/ETA for bumped linux kernels for am335x?
  • In the latest SDK6 for AM335x platforms, we are supporting kernel 3.2.0. Do you have a specific kernel version that need particularly?
    • We'd prefer 3.5+ (pref. a major stable) as BlueZ 5.5 will work out of the box then. 
    • AN: The TI Sitara processor team have their own E2E Forum and can provide an update on their SDK Roadmap here:
• BLE still seem unsupported as BlueZ is 4.98 and no signs of StoneStreet. Anyone with more info here?

• BLE is currently unsupported because our firmware patch does not support it. We'll resume BLE support once Stonestreet software stack kicks in.

• Got it. We actually backported and have BlueZ up and running with current firmwares, but it's alot of work to maintain with new SDK releases
  
  

• It would also be interesting to understand why TI decides to move from BlueZ to Stonestreet?
  • This is a business decision.
    • I got some info that BlueZ might be harder to get certified / BT qualified. Could this be the case?
    • AN: SSO offers a robust and mature Stack that is BT SIG Certified. They also offer custom support for customers needing additional profiles or use cases that are not enabled as part of the base platform offerign from TI.

Regarding SDK roadmap, we are discussing and evaluating what would be the next step for us. Once we have the roadmap defined, we will let you know.

Hi Rogerio,

Any news on the schedule for upcoming SDK releases? Would be amazing to see 3.8 or even better 3.10 very soon to get BLE in place and nice bonus with the new device tree structure of board-specific code.

How did we include BlueZ stack in the AM335x SDK 6.00 and older?  Was it as binaries only or did we provide source?  Meaning was it integrated into the bitbake and build process?

Is it feasible for customer to back-port BlueZ v5.5 to work with AM335x SDK 6.00, kernel v3.2?  Or does kernel v3.5+ have features/functionality needed for BLE?  

If customer moves to TI AM335x SDK 7.00 (kernel v3.12) - what kind of effort would it be for them to pull in, build and integrate BlueZ v5.5?

Moving forward past SDK 6.00, we will include/support SSO Bt stack.

Thanks,
marc 

Hi Marc,

We have back-ported BlueZ 5.5 to current 3.2 kernel & 6.0 SDK. It's quite alot of work for sure. Problem is that the current Wilink8 firmware doesn't seem to support coexistence so we're currently stuck waiting for an update here.

You mentions, "If customer moves to TI AM335x SDK 7.00 (kernel v3.12)"

This sounds very interesting, so there is a 3.12 kernel in the works? Where can we get hold of this branch / SDK 7?

For customers wanting to get BlueZ 5.x+ working (instead of SSO) will be a quite simple task. Not sure about the pros/cons of BlueZ vs StoneStreet One. Can someone elaborate on this?

best David

Hey David,

I know this is an older past, but I'm trying to get blues 5 working on the 3.2 kernel. Any tips on back porting or your code available some where?

Thanks,

Kyle

Hi Kyle,

our patches were quick n dirty and we moved on to 3.13 kernel and bluez trunk basically.

my recomendation is that you look into bluetooth-next as all BLE-related patches are happening there.

David