BlueFi: Bluetooth over WiFi
dl.acm.orgI thought this was going to be a really cool project about Bluetooth Over Wifi. It's not! It's about hacking wifi to make wifi cards speak bluetooth! We're not "over wifi". We're hacking the wifi hardware to make it act like bluetooth! That's a not-so-fine distinction!
I was expecting a cool project on tunneling bluetooth! It had me thinking about HTTP3. One of the really interesting things that happened with HTTP3 is that it leverages the new HTTP Semantics[1] document. Previous HTTP documents like HTTP2[2] had to kind of redefine the universe, explain how to wedge themselves in, how they updated/replaced/operated with HTTP1 universe, explain their relations. But HTTP3 relies on an independent, transportationless definition of the ideas of HTTP, and explains how HTTP3 fulfills & enacts those ideas atop a new transportation layer, explains how it shims into place.
I feel like this decoupling is absolute magic. I feel like conventionally Bluetooth is Layer 1 physical to Layer 7 application- a monolothic specification, totalizing. Convenient for building some products for a couple years, but ultimately inflexibile, limited. I love love love this project, BlueFi. Trying to re-use pieces of a stack creatively is so virtuous, so empowering.
Projects like USB-IP[3] demonstrate similar virtues, allowing whatever-have-you usb devices to work across the network. Really magic capabilities here. I've had less than stunning success getting it working, but I love the premise so much, am so happy we have something. Particularly with Linux's virtual gadget support, we can have a computer pretend to be a sound card, and forward that sound card over usb-ip to another computer, for magical results. But gee, wouldn't it be great if we could just use a network connection for this? Or BlueFi?
BlueFi is a cool project. But generally I just wish headsets could actually speak wifi. And I wish wifi headsets had some kind of a BT compatible streaming system. There was a similar nest of issues with WiGig, which had some various profiles for video connections, pcie connections, network connections, that it had to kind of reinvent how to establish connections. Or companies like MediaTek, which were supposedly going to announce connect-em-all technologies "CrossMount" that simply never materialzied. Connectivity is so weird. All the various standards- except wifi- refuse interoperation. But hey, BlueFi has hacked the DSPs to behave like other protocols- "yay"?
[1] https://httpwg.org/http-core/draft-ietf-httpbis-semantics-la...
[2] https://httpwg.org/specs/rfc7540.html
[3] http://usbip.sourceforge.net/
[4] https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/mediatek-introduces...