Bluetooth Connectivity Extremely Flaky Under macOS 14.1.0 about adv360-pro-zmk

[ReFil]

Hi Patrick

Glad to hear it's all working out for you now, if it works for a bit longer with no hassle is it alright if you close this issue out?

CONFIG_BT_BAS=y can cause Mac's to wake-up from sleep when the battery report is set, but I guess if your laptop never goes to sleep you can enable that without issue

As for the split stuff the upstream ZMK team implemented whats known as "Directed advertising" which allows the right side to exclusively present itself to the left side, and no other devices can see it (On older firmware versions you may have been able to see "Adv360 Pro rt" on your pcs bluetooth menu before both halves connect). The reason the left side needs to be on for a bit first for the quickest connection is because the left side has to broadcast its identity for the right side to know what to advertise to. It's been a big step forward in split connection performance in our experience

[ReFil]

Hi Patrick, thank you for the bug report. If it just started happening after an update then there was probably a minor tweak on macOS that caused this. You could try changing the Bluetooth connection parameters. Remove or comment out these lines from your adv360_left_defconfig https://github.com/KinesisCorporation/Adv360-Pro-ZMK/blob/V3.0/config/boards/arm/adv360/adv360_left_defconfig#L53-L57

As for the left to right connection, after the newest update it should be really snappy, is it taking a long time to connect?

[patricksalo]

Hi ReFil, as always, you're super helpful and know exactly how to solve things. I adjusted the lines mentioned and have about 5 hours under my belt and there's a night and day difference. I've seen zero lag either from the unlock dialog or any other part of the OS. Of course not 100% conclusive until I log more time, but thus far things look good and I'll report back if I find anything goes sideways.

I noticed in the config file the following:

CONFIG_BT_BAS=n #Set this to y to enable BLE battery reporting

...and although earlier today I left this just as it was, a few minutes ago I set to y and recompiled. IIRC this was turned on in builds past and I actually like this feature as it reports out my keyboard power (I think just left) to AirBuddy.

Any ill effects I might see as a result of turning this on other than maybe slightly degraded battery life?

Per the left to right connection issue, I spent some time deciphering my experience and I think we're both correct. I've historically turned each half off/on simultaneously per the original shipping instructions and this appears to be what causes the right keyboard to blink red most of the time under the 3.x firmwares.

But if I readjust my workflow to turn on my left half first, wait a second or two, then turn on the right half, things are super solid and always connect. So I think you're right, this is much improved and I haven't seen any failures in connection in this method. But mind you, I was just trying to replicate my experience here as pretty much the only time I ever turn off/on the halves is after a firmware update, otherwise I keep them on all the time.

Thanks again for the help.

[patricksalo]

Hi ReFil, I really wanted to see what the overnight experience was after the firmware changes and I can confirm things remain just a good as I originally reported. Yes, I think we can close this one out. Also thanks for the background on Direct Advertising as this is very interesting and definitely explains the situation.