Connecting 4 bluetooth controllers

My setup: Raspberry 3+ with virtualhere and USB bluetooth dongle. Linking bluetooth controllers from the RPi3+ to my windows computer (obviously also running virtualhere). My windows computer has strong CPU and 16GB ram, so this should not be the issue.

Everything working well when pairing and connecting 2 bluetooth controllers. When adding a 3rd bluetooth controller, it shows on windows and can be paired. However, it does not connect (shows paired in windows, but not as connected; light on controller still blinking).

I suspect a few things, but would like to get some thoughts before investing more:

1) RPi3+ just not powerful enough. Nothing I can do

2) USB dongle cannot deal with more than 2 in stable way and I could buy a second bluetooth dongle to solve this (to replace or to add

Any thoughts? Any help appreciated!

#2

1. Run top on the pi3 and see what sort of cpu usage you are getting when using /pairing bluetooth?
2. In the virtualhere client, right click USB Hubs->About ->Statistics. What sort of latencies are you seeing?
3. Can you double check you can pair more than 2 ok with the dongle directly on the pc, with virtualhere out of the picture.

#3

Thanks for your help.

re 1 - please note that the controllers actually pair. They show in the windows bluetooth settings as "paired". However, only two show as connected, the other two show only as paired. Top log: https://pastebin.com/BaysqwBH

re 2 - 1ms, but not each field is filled. One field 1ms, then nothing, then 1mn, then nothing, etc.

re 3 - unfortunately, I don't have a PC to try this out... I know this seems a bit weird... I can somehow try with my windows machine, but not as easy as it is a VM. I can somehow try to passthrough the dongle. You suspect the dongle may be the issue?

I remember there are some raspberry settings. Could it be something arond the power supply?

#4

One idea: if you suspect that it is the dongle, it may be easiest for me just to buy a new dongle that you know to be working with more than 2 controllers. Dongles are cheap and it may be worth to use a proven one to eliminate one error source.

#5

1ms definately means the cpu isnt an issue. Its not the power supply because on overload the pi will just reboot and thats not happening. Yes pick up another dongle and see how it goes.

This is all on your lan? Or is the client in a vm in the cloud?

#6

All on my LAN. I can gamestream games in 1080p, so I doubt that the LAN speed is the issue. Just with 2 controllers though. Although you never know...

Any dongle recommendation that is proven to work with raspberry and more than 2 controllers. If this dongle then doesn't work, we at least know that the dongle per se is not the issue.

#7

I think most should work ok, (I have tested broadcom based ones)

#8

Had the same problem with a cheap Bluetooth dongle, tested It again with other not so cheap dongle and It worked flawlesly... 🙃