Add option to use specific bluetooth adapter

[BurdMahn]

I am trying to use a USB bluetooth adapter with a yagi antenna to get a CLI connection to a node thats up on a tower, but there is no option in the meshtastic CLI to specify which bluetooth adapter it uses to do the BLE scan, so it keeps using the internal bluetooth adapter. Can this option be added?

[roberthadow]

Hello @BurdMahn -- If I were sitting on the committee that greenlights mod requests, I'd send this one back, asking the author (a) to describe what he or she is really trying to achieve and (b) give specific hardware configurations that can do the same thing. I think there are already ways to accomplish what you're seeking.

Need: CLI to an elevated device.

If you have a PC generating a CLI stream for the device on the tower, you've got three choices: by (1) BLE, (2) WiFi, or by LoRa.

In most cases, WiFi will give you better range to the tower. BLE is short range by design.

Over an admin channel, you get most of the CLI command library. Anything in form --set FIELD VALUE or --get FIELD. The general form follows:

meshtastic --tcp A.B.C.D --dest !nodeid  --set FIELD VALUE
or
meshtastic --port --dest !nodeid  --get FIELD

To connect this way, you need another LoRa device. It can be conected to your PC by USB (--port) or by WiFi (--tcp A.B.C.D). You'll have to copy out this device's public key and paste it into the tower device.

meshtastic --set security.admin_key "base64:PASTEPUBLICKEYHERE"

The dev team should be devoting time and effort to improving the reliability and documentation of existing features before new features.