Ubertooth and Brew

I picked up the ubertooth one at ShmooCon to continue my quest to break err review medical and fitness devices. I had it working pretty quickly in a VM that Russ H gave me. I needed t flash the firmware to a newer version and decided to do it from host OS.

The setup required several packages to be installed via brew. Easy enough... Except there's tons of tutorials for setting up brew and almost all of them are wrong!!!
This is what did work "ruby -e "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/master/install)"" .

Thank you http://brew.sh/ and http://coolestguidesontheplanet.com/installing-homebrew-os-x-yosemite-10-10-package-manager-unix-apps/ for maintaining accurate tutorials. The github repository maintainers for projects that use brew to install should really consider at least linking to the setup in the help section.  ruby -e "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/master/install)"ruby -e "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/master/install)"

Bluetooth Dongle

I really like the repeater book app. I really applaud the authors for releasing it for free. It looks AWESOME on the nexus 7 screen. The author also sells a bluetooth dongle for FT817/FT857 that allows the app to tune the radio for you to the repeater! The 49 euro is a bit steep for a bluetooth dongle but considering a hardcopy of the repeater directory is $22 every year nd the app is free it palatable.

Until I get around to ordering the bluecoat I got myself a different bluetooth dongle.

After reading some forums I settled on one made a HAM (IK1ZYW) in Italy (http://forums.qrz.com/showthread.php?338952-Yaesu-FT-817-857-897-Bluetooth-CAT-dongle-adapter). Few emails back and forth with Paolo and I was confident in that he knew what he was doing and that I could get it to work in linux. He was even kind enough to test it for me before sending it. Here are the instructions he sent me.

This is the Android Software that works with the dongle http://www.yo3ggx.ro/bt8x7/doc/bt8x7.html

"First thing was to test the CAT-to-BT, and I am currently decoding psk31 over the shack air, including CAT control with Bluetooth.

I issued the following commands:

sdptool add SP

hcitool scan   # then took note of the adapter MAC address

sudo rfcomm bind /dev/rfcomm0 00:12:08:21:08:98 1

# replace the mac address iwth the one from your dongle, "channel" stays 1 I think.

Then fire up fldigi through sudo and configure on HAMLIB the FT817 with 9600 baud, two stop bits, 1000 ms of retry interval, using /dev/rfcomm0 . Don't forget to "turn on" hamlib option in fldigi.

That's about it. There must be a way to make it happen without sudo'ing too much, but I've ran out of time now ;-)"

Now that's what I call customer service.

Few days ago I got a stance looking envelope - looks like the cheap chinese envelope I get random parts and RF connectors in but it held a stance little device with black electrical tape covering most of it except for the pins and LED. Took me a minute of staring at it to realize what it was. Ship time from Italy to the door in PA was under 2 weeks.

If anybody has the BueCat dongle and can provide me the MAC address and the name it advertises itself with etc that would be greatly appreciated :) .

Jawbone Up vs Nike Fuelband

I had the jawbone up (http://jawbone.com/up) almost as soon as it came out. The jawbone was first out of the gate with a fitness band (fitbit doesn't count and they delayed my order so I canceled it). I had 2 of them to be exact. They both died and were returned. The jawbone squandered their hard earned good reputation with that product.

The new kid on the block is the nike fuelband (http://store.nike.com/us/en_us/?l=shop,fuelband&sitesrc=glfl_fuelband). It seems better thought out and has bluetooth (unlike jawbone, the company that practically defined bluetooth done well). The interface is straightup usb so there's no adapter to worry about using. The sizing seems better too as it ships with size adjusters. I do like the 100 +10 LEDs. Not sure I like them enough to pay $51 more than jawbone up. The one key thing it may be missing is a sleep tracker. If the sleep tracker is built in or will soon be added I'll pick one up.

Wonder if it will play along with the nike+ in my running shoes....