Bricks is a question and answer site for LEGO® and building block enthusiasts. It only takes a minute to sign up.
Sign up to join this community
Running Windows XP x32.
I've connected, paired, connected, paired, paired, and connected, but I just can't get the EV3 software to recognize my EV3!
I've used this EV3 before on a different PC over bluetooth (and it worked), my drivers aren't screwed up, etc.
When I go to the software and try to connect to it, it doesn't show. I've refreshed about 50 times.
My EV3 Brick is running firmware V1.09H and is a model from Chrismas 2015, shown as Hardware version V0.60 in the settings panel.
The LEGO MINDSTORMS EV3 software uses Bluetooth functions that were introduced in Windows Vista SP2. Quoting the linked article, "Windows Vista with SP2 and Windows 7 also support the user-mode RFComm and Bluetooth APIs." (The EV3 uses RFCOMM to communicate via Bluetooth.)
So, EV3 Bluetooth will not work on earlier versions of Windows.
The key is to make sure the driver works with MS's bluetooth stack, and doesn't just use it's own stack.
Press Win+R, type bthprops.cpl (or maybe irprops.cpl, it's been a while), hit enter. Check the Hardware tab to make sure your device actually shows up. If not, try different drivers/manually installing the driver using the "Have disk" method. 3rd party bluetooth stacks may disable the MS one seeing the device, even if the device/driver supports the MS stack.
bthprops.cpl, hit enter, go to the hardware tab, and make sure that your bluetooth adapter is listed. In my case dispite the adapter being in Device Manager it was not listed here, meaning Windows didn't know it was a bluetooth adapter. I think the software that came with my adapter on the CD took control of the adapter away from Windows.