Bluetooth
Found under Wireless on the device's panel list.
BT Info
Shows this device's Bluetooth Low Energy identity and whether it is advertising, and lets you turn BLE on or off and set the name it advertises.
The screen
The ESP32-C5 radio is soldered to this device and has its own link to the main processor, so this screen is always live - there is no Orca UART setting to point at it first. Top to bottom:
- Advert Name - the name this device advertises over Bluetooth LE
- A status line, coloured to match the state below, with the device's Bluetooth MAC address to its right once the co-processor answers
- Terminal Enabled - Enabled or Disabled (see below - it looks live but is not)
- Num of Devices - always reads 0; it is not wired up to a live count
This screen used to render black. Captions were written in a way the display dropped instead of showing, and the controls' ids did not match the order they were created in, so an update meant for one line landed on another and overwrote it instead of appearing on its own. Both are fixed now; what follows is what the screen actually shows.
Controls
| Button | Action |
|---|---|
| Blue | Turn Bluetooth LE on or off |
| Green | Set the advertised name |
| Cancel | This help page |
Gray, Yellow and Red have no label on this screen and do nothing. HOME leaves the screen from here, as it does everywhere else in the menu.
Status colours
- Green "Running" - BLE is on and advertising
- Yellow "Starting" - BLE is turning on
- Red "Disabled" - the module is reachable but BLE is off
- Red "ESP32 radio not responding" - the module has not answered in the last 2 seconds; the MAC address, Terminal Enabled and Num of Devices are all hidden and nothing else on the screen is being refreshed
A hint line below the status fills in for two of these: while "Starting" is showing it reads "On, waiting for the radio."; while the module is silent it instead names the likely reason - either that there was simply no reply, or that power zone 5, the zone the ESP32 sits on, is switched off. It stays blank the rest of the time.
This status line updates continuously while the screen is open, not on a timer - whatever it shows is current as of right now.
Advertised name
Green opens a text entry for the name. It accepts up to 30 characters; type more and the extra is silently discarded rather than shown as an error.
Turning BLE on while the name is still blank seeds a default of "FreeWili" rather than refusing - unlike an access point, a nameless BLE advertisement carries no open network with it, so there is nothing gained by blocking it.
You can turn BLE on or off, or change the name, even while the status shows the module is not responding - either change is sent to the module automatically the moment it answers. Turning BLE on from here also switches power zone 5 back on if it was off, so the radio has a rail to come up on.
Whether BLE is on is saved right away and survives a restart. A changed name is pushed to the module live but is not written to disk on its own; it lands on disk the next time the BLE settings are saved as a whole, which the on/off switch also does. A name typed here and never followed by a Blue press is lost on the next restart.
Terminal Enabled
This field shows a separate setting from the BLE Settings menu found elsewhere in the device, but that setting is not currently used: this device's actual Bluetooth terminal access always follows the Blue button's on/off state instead, regardless of what Terminal Enabled says.
Bluetooth Control
Bluetooth controls are provided on the BT Info screen. Use that screen to view the ESP32 connection state, change the advertised device name, and turn Bluetooth LE on or off.
This placeholder screen has no configurable controls in the current release. Press Home to return to the launcher or Cancel to close this help page.
See also: Bluetooth LE — the console/GUI commands for this panel.