I received my uconsole in India last week, which is now updated to debian bookworm. I am facing issue in using bluetooth audio.
Limited range: bluetooth earphone (LG tonefree) gets disconnected when I move few feet from uconsole. The same earphone remains connected with my phone for almost 4 times the distance.
More frustrating problem is every time I move my head slightly audio is severely distorted, so that I am unable hear anything. There is no such issue when I am using same earphones with other devices.
Is there such known issue, as I have been unable to find anything like this on forums, or is it due to antenna, ( I guess wifi and bluetooth uses same antenna), though I have not faced any issue with wifi connection.
Btw., I like this device very much. I haven’t tried using this with mobile network yet, but I will do it soon. One more trouble I am having is that device turns off when battery is below 80% but it is probably due to poor quality 18650 cells I have procured. It is very difficult to find branded 18650 here.
Are you using the stock antenna and is it stuck to the case? If so i’d do one of the hacks to improve its placement or replace it with a better antenna.
How long is your device lasting on battery? I get 5-7 hours on mine depending on what i’m doing. If you’re getting about that then i’d run the battery calibration.
I am using stock antenna. So is this a known issue? Finding another antenna wont be easy.
I am getting about 2 hours with battery. Thanks for the idea, I tried running power-calibrate and it complained that battery is not giving accurate data. I will wait for few charge-discharge cycles.
Sir, it’s physics. Waves and metal hardly get along. You shouldn’t have blindly followed the manual and stuck the antenna onto the case. Find a thick double sided tape if ever the adhesive in the stock rubs off. Or ask your IoT hardware vendor for other u.FL antennas.
Well I trusted physics knowledge of designers, but I guess I have to apply my own physics here.
Btw., I found 2 LG 18650 cells and now battery life is much better and accurate.
EDIT: applied 2 way tap hack and now bluetooth audio is usable when device is close. Range is still limited to 4-5 feet only but it is not a big problem.
When I use dtparam=ant2, bluetooth doesn’t work, ( I am using default ext. antenna attached to connector on rpi-cm4). Without dtparam=ant2 bluetooth works in close range. I haven’t noticed much difference in wifi, it has small range but works with or without dtparam=ant2, it even works with dtparam=noant
Conclusion: Either supplied antenna is totally useless or atleast it doesn’t support bluetooth, and only works for wifi signals. Next is to find some better antenna.
Do you have the stock antenna stuck to the case? If you do it’s causing interference. Unstick it and use some thick double-sided sticky tape or something else to give it some clearance away from the metal frame.
While I also started with the double sided tape hack, I finally caved in in and installed something bigger. Now the uConsole has the best WiFi reception compared to all other devices I have
Edit: The antenna is not as big as it looks from this perspective. It can nicely be tugged under the device when not in use but I have yet to figure out the best way to mount it there.
