mouse battery status?

[Eric Anderson]

Maksim Yevmenkin wrote:
> Eric,
>
>>>> Is there a way to find the current battery power on a bluetooth 
>>>> mouse?  Here's a bthidcontrol dump of my Logitech mx900:
>>>
>>> with this patch bthidd(8) should properly detect battery operated 
>>> devices. that is one piece of the puzzle
>>>
>>> another piece is that the device should send hid report about its 
>>> battery status, i.e. bthidd(8) will use syslog(3) facility to log 
>>> such events.
>>>
>>> bthidd(8) understand battery report if page is HUP_MICROSOFT and 
>>> usage is 0xfe01 (please see /usr/src/usr.sbin/bluetooth/bthidd/hid.c 
>>> for details).
>>>
>>> i do not see page == microsoft and usage == 0xfe01 in the hid 
>>> descriptor you have posted. so it seems like your mouse will not 
>>> send battery report.
>>
>> Ahh - so only MS mice send the output, or that's just a Microsoft 
>> add-in that others use too?
>
> do not know. this code in bthidd(8) was written by looking at msdn 
> docs (i think).
>
>> I have a microsoft bluetooth mouse at home that I'll try to get the 
>> info from.
>
> ok. let us know about the results.

Here's a bthidcontrol dump from a microsoft mouse:

Collection page=Generic_Desktop usage=Mouse
Collection page=Generic_Desktop usage=Pointer
Input   id=2 size=1 count=1 page=Button usage=Button_1 Variable, logical 
range 0..1
Input   id=2 size=1 count=1 page=Button usage=Button_2 Variable, logical 
range 0..1
Input   id=2 size=1 count=1 page=Button usage=Button_3 Variable, logical 
range 0..1
Input   id=2 size=1 count=1 page=Button usage=Button_4 Variable, logical 
range 0..1
Input   id=2 size=1 count=1 page=Button usage=Button_5 Variable, logical 
range 0..1
Input   id=2 size=3 count=1 page=0x0000 usage=0x0000 Const, logical 
range 0..1
Input   id=2 size=8 count=1 page=Generic_Desktop usage=X Variable 
Relative, logical range -127..127
Input   id=2 size=8 count=1 page=Generic_Desktop usage=Y Variable 
Relative, logical range -127..127
Input   id=2 size=8 count=1 page=Generic_Desktop usage=Wheel Variable 
Relative, logical range -127..127
Input   id=2 size=8 count=1 page=Consumer usage=AC_Pan Variable 
Relative, logical range -127..127
End collection
Feature id=2 size=1 count=1 page=Generic_Desktop usage=0x004b Variable, 
logical range 0..1
Feature id=2 size=7 count=1 page=0x0000 usage=0x0000 Const, logical 
range 0..1
End collection
Collection page=Consumer usage=Consumer_Control
Collection page=Generic_Desktop usage=Mouse
Input   id=3 size=2 count=1 page=Microsoft usage=0xfe01 Variable, 
logical range 0..3
Input   id=3 size=1 count=1 page=Microsoft usage=0xfe00 Variable, 
logical range 0..1
Input   id=3 size=5 count=1 page=0x0000 usage=0x0000 Const, logical 
range 0..1
End collection
End collection
Collection page=Consumer usage=Consumer_Control
Collection page=Generic_Desktop usage=Mouse
Input   id=4 size=8 count=1 page=Consumer usage=AC_Pan Variable 
Relative, logical range -127..127
Feature id=4 size=1 count=1 page=Microsoft usage=0xff04 Variable, 
logical range 0..1
Feature id=4 size=1 count=1 page=Microsoft usage=0xff06 Variable, 
logical range 0..1
Feature id=4 size=1 count=6 page=0x0000 usage=0x0000 Const, logical 
range 0..1
End collection
End collection


I also noticed that a query shows this line:

battery_power           true;

What is that telling me?  That it is currently on battery power?   I 
suppose if that's the case, then some devices may report false for AC 
power and true for battery..


>> I wonder where the right place to report the battery information is?
>
> like i said, right now it goes to /var/log/messages. info, notice and 
> warning levels are used for different battery states (ok, low, very 
> low). if this is not the right place, please let me know where do you 
> want it to be?
>
> thanks,
> max

I suppose if one wanted to make a tool to monitor the mouse battery 
(say, for an X window manager), you could poll/parse the output of 
bthidcontrol, right?  Is there a better way to grab the info (a bthid 
library or something)?   Sorry if this is a trivial question - I'm not a 
bluetooth hacker :)


Thanks!
Eric




-- 
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Eric Anderson        Sr. Systems Administrator        Centaur Technology
Anything that works is better than anything that doesn't.
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