So which keyboard you suggest for the Pinephone?

[Peter Gamma]

I did not manage to work with this keyboard for more than a view seconds and then it disconnected. Where you really able to work with this keyboard for 20 - 30 min. with a stable Bluetooth connection?

[Zebulon Walton]

I did not manage to work with this keyboard for more than a view seconds and then it disconnected. Where you really able to work with this keyboard for 20 - 30 min. with a stable Bluetooth connection?

It worked OK for that length of time when I tried actually using the phone as a terminal, That was a couple of years ago. However I found it difficult to type on and the Pinephone screen is not really the right form factor, so I put the keyboard aside. (I only use the Pinephone for telephone calls.) However the test I just did to see if the keyboard still worked was only for a couple of minutes, long enough to pair it with the Pinephone and type a few lines of text into a terminal. (The keyboard certainly did not disconnect after just a few seconds.) I would have to do a longer test to see if that keyboard is going to be stable with the Pinephone for a longer period of time. Also, I'm still on Mobian bookworm. I don't know if changes in trixie would affect bluetooth.

[Peter Gamma]

I have a keyboard which looks idential. My keyboard disconnected immediately. I was not able to write with it.

I invite Zebulon Walton to do a longer test to see if that keyboard is going to be stable with the Pinephone for a longer period of time. If this works then we had now a second keyboard for the Pinephone which is available and has been confirmed that it works.

1. Wibble tested the iGo Stowawy Bluetooth keyboard for 30 min.

- He wrote here in the forum that it works.

- It is a keyboard which is 10 years old and especially designed for mobile phones.

2. A good chance that it works to also have keyboards with a 2.3 Ghz usb dongle:

https://forum.pine64.org/showthread.php?...#pid122611

- A user in the armbian forum confirmed that a Logitec keyboard worked for hims with a 2.3 Ghz usb dongle:

- For the Orange Pi 5 basically only Bluetooth devices work which do not require drivers.

- The Logitec 2.3 Ghz usb dongle is such a device which requires no drivers.

- If someone can confirm this for the Pinephone this would be fine.

- We have so many distros, and I suppose it should work with all the distros without drivers.

3. If Zebulon Walton makes a 30 min test than we had a 3. th device which would be worth mentioning.

-  And I invite Zebulon Walton again to test it for 30 min. and share the exiting result with us.

[Zebulon Walton]

OK, I left the bluetooth keyboard connected to the Pinephone for a full hour. It did not disconnect. A few notes:

Although the keyboard had been previously paired with the Pinephone it does not connect automatically when switched on even if you press its bluetooth button. You have to go into the Pinephone bluetooth settings and tell it to connect the keyboard.

I had the Pinephone hooked up to USB power so it did not go into sleep mode. I don't know if the phone going to sleep would disconnect bluetooth or how badly the bluetooth connection drains the battery.

I did not actively use the keyboard during the test, I simply connected it. (I would consider actually typing on the thing for an hour to be torture.) At the end of the hour I went to use the keyboard and it worked. The keyboard had gone to sleep, however as soon as a key was pressed it was working, it did not disconnect from the Pinephone.

As previously mentioned I have not moved to Mobian trixie. I only use the Pinephone for telephone calls and that feature is working stably with bookworm so I have not risked updating. I have no idea if changes in trixie would affect this keyboard. For that matter I can't speak for any operating system distributions working with this keyboard other than Mobian bookworm.

[Peter Gamma]

Thank you for the sophisticated test, Zebulon. Did you think about publishing it in the «Linux Journal» in the section "smartphones"?