For my birthday, I received an excellent SonyEricsson w810i. I used to have a SonyEricsson t630, which easily synchronized with Evolution via Bluetooth.(Calendar, Address book, ToDo’s) So I expected the same from the brand new SonyEricsson w810i. It seems that SonyEricsson are known to work good with Linux.
I will explain how to setup the phone and Ubuntu to synchronize your data between the phone and Evolution, to share files(jpg, mp3,…) between those two and to use the phone as a mouse controller. And all this is done via Bluetooth. So there is no need to carry any cables with you anymore to get your SonyEricsson w810i connected with Ubuntu.
The first thing we need to setup is Bluetooth on the Thinkpad. So, install the package, bluez-utils, with aptitude.(aptitude install bluez-utils) Then, I had to turn on the bluetooth device manually, so I run the command(as root(sudo su), sudo didn’t do the job) echo enable > /proc/acpi/ibm/bluetooth. It is also possible to use key combination Fn+F5, but this turns on/off wireless and bluetooth together.
To start the Bluetooth services, I ran the command sudo /etc/init.d/bluetooth restart. You can now verify that your Bluetooth device is working correctly by executing the command hciconfig -a(or hcitool dev). This command is very similar to the well-known command iwconfig (for the wireless device).
To discover other Bluetooth devices, you need to scan for available devices, this is done with hcitool scan(or hidd –search). This will give you the available devices by giving their Address(00:00:00:00:00:00) and the device name(for example: My Phone). Each device has its unique address.
To connect to another device, simply execute sudo hidd –connect 00:00:00:00:00:00. This is basically all there is to basic Bluetooth commands. I will now explain how I managed to use the phone as a mouse controller.(This might not be possible with every mobile phone, please check with the phone manufacturer if your phone supports this feature)
Use the SonyEricsson w810i as a Mouse Controller with Ubuntu
This feature is useful if you have a presentations and remotely want to go to the next slide. (or simply if you want to impress your friends and Mac Users, how sweet these devices work together) You can do with the phone whatever you could do with a (simple) mouse, you control the mouse pointer, left-click and right-click,etc. To get this to work simply, scan for devices to get the Address from your phone, and then execute the following command (replace your address):
Then the w810i asks me if I want to let my Thinkpad connect to the phone. Of course you have to answer ‘yes’. There are 3 modes of controller on the w810i, but I don’t know the difference between those modes.(Presenter, MediaPlayer, Desktop) But I guess the names are pretty self-explaining.
Synchronizing the w810i with Evolution(Calendar, Address book, Tasks)
I managed to sync the data on th Phone with the data from Evolution. I use the tool multiSync, which has several plugins and allows to sync many different types. So for example I also use this tool to sync Evolution Calendar with my Google Calendar. To set things up correctly, it took me quite some time. But, let’s start at the beginning. First, we need the following packages: multisync, libmultisync-plugin-irmc, libmultisync-plugin-irmc-bluetooth, libmultisync-plugin-evolution, multisync-gui(If you want a GUI, otherwise install msynctool) It might be possible that I left some packages out, so please inform me if you need to install additional packages.
Before you start, start Bluetooth on both devices. Then launch the multisync-gui from the Applications Menu. In multisync-gui, add a new group. You have to select evo2-sync(Evolution) as first member and irmc-sync(SE w810i) as second.(It might also work by interchanging the members!) Then, you must configure the members, So click ‘Edit’. Here comes an important point: Select Notes for disabled objects to sync, as actual SonyEricsson models does not support to sync Notes.(See the picture below) I spent several hours to find out that this is a necessary condition to sync new SE phones. Otherwise, synchronization is not possible.
The settings for the member ‘evo2-sync’, is straight forward, just specify the Address Book, calendar and Tasks of Evolution you want to sync with your Phone.
The settings for the Member ‘irmc-sync’ are as follows, where 00:00:00:00:00:00 is the Address of your phone
<config>
<connectmedium>bluetooth</connectmedium>
<btunit>00:18:13:0C:EA:F4</btunit>
<btchannel>8</btchannel>
</config>
Now, simply push the refresh Button and your data gets synchronized. Possible conflicts are shown to you. For usage of the command line tool(msynctool) I refer you to the manual of the tool.(man msynctool).
File Sharing between w810i and Ubuntu
As the SonyEricsson has an integrated MemoryStick(512MB), it can easily be used as external card reader or to store some files on it. You can also transfer some photos(jpg) to your mobile phone, or some music files(mp3) via Bluetooth. Install the package gnome-bluetooth first. Then, let us have a look on how to transfer files from the phone to the Thinkpad:
Start Applications-> Bluetooth File Sharing(or gnome bluetooth). A small icon indicates that Ubuntu is ready to receive files via Bluetooth. On the phone, browse to the file you wish to transfer and select ‘More’-> ‘Send’->’Bluetooth’ and select the Thinkpad.
The other direction, again start the ‘Bluetooth File Sharing’ Application first. Then in Nautilus right-clik the file you want to transfer to the phone and select ‘Send To’. A dialog pops up and asking you which service to use. Select Bluetooth here. Important: There is a bug in Edgy Eft, so no devices are found here by default. There is a work around by executing the command
So that’s basically what I have done so far. As an outlook I want to get the gnome-phone-manager to work with the w810i. But there is again a Bug, which stops the gnome-phone-manager from connecting to the phone. The gnome-phone-manager would allow me to send my Text Messages from my Thinkpad, which means a full keyboard for entering the messages, and it would inform me that I received a new Text Message on the screen, so I can always mute the phone and still I am informed of new Messages.
Further, it would be possible to use the phone as a modem, but I am absolutely not interested in such a thing(as long as prices for data transfer are as high).
Screenshots
hey thanks for the informative post, I get my w810i in a few days and look forward getting this working on my kubuntu system using your tutorial! Cheers!
PS: I know the w810i getting older now, but at least it superceeds my damaged v600i!
Thanks for this guide! Do you know if ther’s any way to use a USB cable (instead of bluetooth) to synchronize the same data? I have the same phone and I’d love to make this work (don’t have a bluetooth device in my laptop, though)…
Thanks again!
Rasmus, Copenhagen
Hi Rasmus,
Well I don’t have any experience for sync over USB. However, it seems that this might be difficult to get it working.
Do you have an Infrared Port on your Laptop? I think this would be much easier to setup.
Hpwever if you want to try to sync over USB I recommend you the following sites:
http://dburr.veritel.com.au/nokia/
http://www.sensi.org/~ak/openobex-usb/
Maybe you get it working with the help of these sites.
Best Regards
Thierry
Hi Thierry,
I’m not too technical a user, so to be honest, I don’t even know if I have an infrared port. I looked up my laptop model (Asus M6N), though, and it seems that I do have an infrared port (Infrared port support IrDA V1.1). How does that work?
I use Ubuntu Edgy (6.10), and I use the same phone as mentioned here (SonyE. w810i).
Thanks a lot!!
Rasmus
Hi Rasmus, Well, I try to give you the following links as a little help. First of all to setup irda(Infrared), you will need to setup Infrared:
sudo apt-get install ircp irda-utils openobex-apps
And then load the kernel modules:
sudo modprobe irda irtty_sir sir_dev
and then test your irda device with the command:
sudo irdadump
Hopefully it works. Then in the configuration of the irmc-sync of multisync you will need to change the connectmedium to Irda and then it should look as follows:
<config>
<donttellsync>false</donttellsync>
<connectmedium>ir</connectmedium>
<irname>$IDENTIFIER</irname>
</config>
Where the identifier, you will need to find out with "irdadump". I refer you to the following page for more informations about getting the correct $IDENTIFIER.
http://en.opensuse.org/OpenSync/irmc-sync
And this should be it. When I have some time I will test this method and post it here. And if you have some success please let me know.
Regards
Thierry
Thierry,
Thank you very much for helping out!!
First, there seems to be a conflict between two of the packages that you ask me to install:
For the “openobex-apps” package to be installed, it requires the “ircp” to be uninstalled. And vica versa.
Anyway, I tried to test the irda device without “ircp”, but with no luck. After the “sudo irdadump” command, the console kind of “freezed” - and I CTRL C’ed it. Then it gives this reply:
0 packets received by filter
What should I do from here? I’m still not even sure that I have an infrared port - will I be able to physically identify it somewhere on the laptop?
Thanks again!!
Rasmus.
Ok this seems to be a device(if present) problem. Seems that Infrared is not setup correclty or maybe even not present.
So let’s try to get it working with the cable. So if you connect your USB cable, you somehow have to find out the location of the usb cable. This is something like /dev/ttyACM0.
I am not sure what is needed for <cabletype>usb</cabletype>, maybe you could try out several Types, like USB,, or even "ericsson", or just remove it??
Then we have to configure the irmc-sync plugin of multisync to sync over the cable instead of bluetooth. So maybe you could try to configure it like:
<config>
<donttellsync>false</donttellsync>
<connectmedium>cable</connectmedium>
<cabledev>/dev/ttyACM0</cabledev>
<cabletype>usb</cabletype>
</config>
With
Good Luck
Thierry,
I’m sorry to say that I don’t know how to configure the irmc-sync plugin? What do I do (sorry, but I’m not good with linux)? I’ve configured the Multi-Sync app (through the GUI), but that doesn’t seem to work. The phone is located at /dev/ttyACM0. I know that since I can connect to it with Wammu on the address.
Thanks!
Rasmus
Hi ,
I guess you have multisync-gui installed. So you have to create a new group and call it maybe something like “w810i-evolution”.
Then for the group you have to add 2 members. Then click Edit in the gui for editing the group. We need to add 2 members to the group. So push the Add Member button for adding a new member. First select the evo2-sync as a new member, and then select irmc-sync as second member.
Then for configuration of the members, just select the member on the left and the possible configuration shows up on the right part of the gui. For the evo2-sync you can select which Addressbook, Calendar and Tasks you want to sync in this group.
For irmc-sync, you see some code, which looks like the one I pasted in the previous comment. You have to remove the existing code and replace it with the one I gave you. Then close the groups and configuration dialogs, so you come back to the main GUI of Multisync.
Now you should push the Refresh button to sync. And hopefully it will work. Otherwise try as stated above different types. If i does not work then please tell me the messages displayed within the gui.
Best Regards
Thierry
Hi Thierry,
Thanks for the how-to! I was exicted to try it out, but I ran into a wall at the very beginning: In MultiSync, I simply didn’t have the choice of “evo2-sync”. I could only choose “Ximian Evolution 2″ (and “IrMC Mobile Device”). I tried to google a little bit how to install the evo2-sync pluing, but I couldn’t find a straight-forward answer… Maybe you have one? : )
I found this website, where the packages/files are, but there’s no good installation guide:
http://www.opensync.org/wiki/download
Thanks for your assistance!
All the best,
Rasmus
I think you have to install opensync first. So open the file /etc/apt/sources.list as Root, and add the following three lines at the end of the file:
##OpenSync
deb http://www.in.fh-merseburg.de/~jahn/opensync-0.21/ edgy main
deb-src http://www.in.fh-merseburg.de/~jahn/opensync-0.21/ edgy main
Save and close the file. In a terminal type:
gpg –keyserver hkp://subkeys.pgp.net/ –recv-keys CB210090B029CB84
gpg –export CB210090B029CB84 | sudo apt-key add -
And then finally:
sudo aptitude update
And now you are ready to install opensync. This is done with the command:
sudo aptitude install libopensync0 libopensync-plugin-irmc libopensync-plugin-evolution2 multisync-gui
This should be it, now you are ready to try the above HowTo
Good Luck
Thierry,
Thanks again man!! I’m sorry to keep returning here with new problems. The gpg commands you gave me didn’t work. Here’s the output:
rasmus@rasmus-laptop:~$ gpg –keyserver hkp://subkeys.pgp.net/ –recv-keys CB210090B029CB84
usage: gpg [options] [filename]
rasmus@rasmus-laptop:~$ gpg –export CB210090B029CB84 | sudo apt-key add -
usage: gpg [options] [filename]
gpg: no valid OpenPGP data found.
–
And as that failed, the apt update also had problems:
[…]
W: GPG error: http://www.in.fh-merseburg.de edgy Release: The following signatures couldn’t be verified because the public key is not available: NO_PUBKEY CB210090B029CB84
W: You may want to run apt-get update to correct these problems
rasmus@rasmus-laptop:~$
—
Please advise - and I’ll continue with the how-to. Thanks very much!
Rasmus.
In MultiSync, I just checked the “note” field now and retried, but it still won’t synchronize. I tried everything with both ACM0 and ACM1.
How do I find out if USB or usb (or whatever) indeed is the right path to the phone? Doesn’t multi-sync has a error log?
Normally when I connect the phone in “file transfer” mode, two devices pop up - one with the “phone card” and one with “phone”. I guess that’s ACM0 and ACM1. Don’t know if that has any significance…
Btw, I have four USB ports in my laptop. It must be necessary to distinguish, then?
Thanks a lot!
Rasmus
Hello,
very nice tutorial.
But I have one question:
How do I install multisync-gui?
Hi Stefan,
To install Multisync-gui, add the following repositories to your /etc/apt/sources.list and then execute the following commands:
sudo aptitude update
and
sudo aptitude install multisync-gui
That should install all the necessary dependencies.
Best Regards
Thanks for your reply.
Syncing evolutionw810i using multisync worked one time but “resyncing” doesn’t.
Now I have opensync and multisync-gui installed but syncing doesn’t work either (even though my mobile says that it worked). Are there any special options I have to activate to get the resync working?
I am having problem in using my w810i set to use as a modem to use it to connect my laptop to internet. Via SE’s software for windows it can be done very easily. Can anyone please suggest how to do the same in Ubuntu 7.04.
Hei mkmansur, You can find informations on using the build-in modem with Ubuntu 7.04, right here: http://www.williambrownstreet.net/wordpress/?p=37#comment-37
Best Regards
Hi, thanks for the guide, it looks great, and is just what i need it to do… but i am running into a bit of a problem: whenever i connect to the computer, i’m required to put in a passcode (usually 0000 for most devices), but none of the codes i’ve tried have worked… any suggestions?
James > you have to edit (and possibly enable) the password in /etc/bluetooth/hcid.conf
see http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=298957&page=3
Thierry > thx much for the tutorial. Got me most of the way there
Hi,
Can anyone help me to connect phone with help of USB cable in phone mode itself. I have Sony Ericsson W810I and Ubuntu 8.04 Desktop.
With Thanks,
Prabath
> To prabath:
What do you want to do with the phone connected over USB?
Syncing is quite difficult…
Using the modem is easy…
Does someone know how to get the code to activate the field test mode for a sony ericsson w810i? pls I need the info ASAP
I get a error,
bash: /proc/acpi/ibm/bluetooth: The file or directory does not exist
when i try this, echo enable > /proc/acpi/ibm/bluetooth
this is nice post guy… help me alot… thanks