Hi. A few days ago, KDE 6 was released. According to the announcement (KDE MegaRelease 6, I cannot post links), now it is possible to connect via Bluetooth.
My current Wi-Fi network has device isolation, so I am eager to try out Bluetooth connection.
I have updated KDE Connect desktop & mobile to the latest version. Then I tried to connect them via my Wi-Fi hotspot, and it succeeded. Next, I switched to my current Wi-Fi network (with device isolation), enabled Bluetooth on both devices, and paired them together. However, I cannot see them in the device list. What should I do to connect via Bluetooth?
Thank you for the advice! However, it seems that Bluetooth tethering is not working as expected.
I enabled Bluetooth tethering on my phone (which acts similar to hotspot). Then I found that I can connect to both the public Wi-Fi and the Bluetooth tethering at the same time. However, my phone still didn’t appear in the device list. But if I disconnect from the public Wi-Fi and depend solely on tethering, KDE Connect could find and connect to my phone.
This is not convenient at all. If I want to connect to my phone, I have to use tethering to connect to the Internet, which is almost same with hotspot. I wish the Bluetooth connection function can be re-enabled one day.
Update: After establishing connection with my phone, if I connect to public Wi-Fi at the same time, the connection of KDE Connect would not break. However, if I turn off Bluetooth tethering, the connection would break.
So there won’t be any native bluetooth support for KDE Connect, only via Hotspot?
I’ve tried to build from git with -DBLUETOOTH_ENABLED=On, but bluetoothlinkprovider.cpp fails with a compiler error because of an undeclared variable np in line 197. Seems that it hasn’t been tried for a while. (Edit: Sorry, it seems that I was wrong about that, this line has been changed just two days ago).
This is not a solution if you have to have a WiFi hot spot connected at the same time you have a BT paired connection. My device absolutely will not work using KDE connect with a BT only paired connection. This thread does not detail a BT only connection solution for KDE connect. Could anyone who has successfully connected a android device via KDE connect and a paired BT connection with a PC running KDE connect please advise.
I am also trying to connect my phone to my laptop using KDE Connect and Bluetooth (there is no stable WiFi where I am), which according to [KDE userbase article on KDEConnect; I’m lacking permission to insert a link] should be possible since 24.08.1.
I have the phone and laptop paired using Bluetooth, and KDE Connect on the phone has the Bluetooth beta enabled, but neither on the phone when I press “pair new device” in KDE Connect, nor on my laptop when I press “Refresh” in System Settings > KDE Connect, I can discover / see the other (i.e. it does not work from either device). journalctl --user -b contains nothing obviously related and journalctl --user -b -t kdeconnect is empty.
The phone is on Android 13 with KDE Connect 1.32.9 (via F-Droid) and the laptop is on Fedora 41 KDE with KDE Connect 24.12.0:
Operating System: Fedora Linux 41
KDE Plasma Version: 6.2.4
KDE Frameworks Version: 6.9.0
Qt Version: 6.8.1
Kernel Version: 6.12.4-200.fc41.x86_64 (64-bit)
Graphics Platform: Wayland
Processors: 8 × 11th Gen Intel® Core™ i7-11370H @ 3.30GHz
Memory: 62,5 GiB of RAM
Graphics Processor: Mesa Intel® Xe Graphics
Manufacturer: TUXEDO
Product Name: TUXEDO InfinityBook Pro 14 Gen6
Any idea what might be wrong or how to debug this?
I have KDEConnect over bluetooth working, I can exchange files between phone and pc (Plasma 6.2.4) and they see each other in the respective app.
However, I do not have “tethering over bluetooth” enabled on my phone (Nokia 7.2, Android 11)! They are simply paired like when I’d want to share files over bluetooth without KDEConnect.
Everything that’s happening kinda looks and works the same as if I’d simply been sharing the files via bare bluetooth, except I used the KDE Connect dialogs.
I had my devices previously paired via Wifi before trying to use KDEConnect over bluetooth. Maybe if you do the primary introductions via Wifi (should work also over a shakier connection), it’ll later work over BT?