Bluetooth board for Keyboard HID

[Hellmark]

https://www.adafruit.com/products/1535/

Seems like it might be an interesting board. Would need stuff for power, especially if you're going to use a rechargeable battery. Price is hard to argue with.

[SpAmRaY]

interesting

[debt4lyfe]

Looks like it's only capable of sending six keys. There are better devices like the bluesmirf hid https://www.sparkfun.com/products/10938

Edit: oh, I see it is capable of more. Still, the blesmirf is an alternative.

[Hellmark]

Doesn't bluesmrf require some sort of controller to handle input and generally act as the brains? This could stand in place of a teensy and is a fraction of the price of the bluesmrf ($20 for bluefruit vs $45 for bluesmrf).

Yeah, there are other options, just not this cheap.

[debt4lyfe]

Bluefruit needs a controller to feed it serial data if you want more than six keys. You'll end up using a teensy or small arduino either way

[esoomenona]

Bluefruit needs a controller to feed it serial data if you want more than six keys. You'll end up using a teensy or small arduino either way

Where are you getting this information about six keys? It clearly says it's preprogrammed for many more than that. 12, in fact. It clearly has some sort of controller built into it. Without complete description or technical details though, we can't say exactly what it's capable of. But it seems to be the same size and have the same amount of input pins as a Teensy. It's possible this thing can do what a Teensy can, through Bluetooth. Programming it won't be as easy though.

[Hellmark]

So really only useful for itself, if you're planning on doing a basic NES style gamepad Wonder why all the extra pins then?

[debt4lyfe]

sorry, i was misreading the description, you are right there. it mentions remapping the 12 existing keys but mentions no programmability beyond that. the product description seems to say it needs a controller feeding it serial data for more keys.

If you want to have better control over the data sent, connect a microcontroller to the RX pin at 3-5V logic level, 9600 baud, and send ASCII data: it will be 'typed out' character by character. We also have support for various non-printable characters such as ESC, Shift, F1-F12, etc. as well as toggling the virtual keyboard on iOS.

[dorkvader]

according to the pinout the bottom 12 pins are for the 12 inputs in a 12*1 "matrix" with inherant NKRO. The tops are gnd, reset, LED's, pair, and UART. The side appears to be FTDI, but in reality is not usable after adafruit programs it (they use those pins to program it at the factory)

So with custom firmware, you can get up to 6*6=36 keys, or maybe more, depending on if you can actually use the top pins as inputs.

more information might be had from the datasheet of  "The module consists of a CSR BlueCore" that they "custom program".

Doesn't the teensy have UART? you could just use it to output keys via that (9600 buad, 3V or 5V) and have bluetooth OR USB. You are limited by what codes it'll take, but there's a good number (looks like most keys are there)
http://learn.adafruit.com/introducing-bluefruit-ez-key-diy-bluetooth-hid-keyboard/sending-keys-via-serial

[0100010]

Some folks have used these, opened up to reduce the size.

http://handheldsci.com/kb

[debt4lyfe]

I saw one mod with that device but it was in a unicomp which has a fair amount of space inside. Any idea what the dimensions are? Would it fit in a poker?