2016
03.19

One of the excellent new features of the Raspberry Pi 3 is the built in bluetooth. If you are already running a set up OS and do not wish to start over again you can install the drivers to enable to feature manually with apt-get

Note, I am on raspian Jessie, I do not know if this will work for older wheezy users.

sudo apt-get install pi-bluetooth

This will install the appropriate driver for the pi 3 and once it is done setting up you should see something similar to this:

pi@retropie:~ $ hcitool dev
Devices:
hci0 B8:27:EB:C0:D7:C1

 

From there you can pair your bluetooth devices as normal.

This is a great upgrade to the Pi as it not only saves you $20 between a bluetooth and a wifi adapter but you also reclaim 2 USB ports.

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  1. Hi Phil.

    Sweet controller.

    Do you have a schematic for the controllers and the bluefruit? Would like to build it myself too. How is the battery connected, what type is it? And is it possible to add an external on/off switch?

    Cheers
    G

  2. It does have an on/off here’s the original post I wrote for it: http://www.philtopia.com/?p=2134

    And here is the Adafruit tutorial that inspired me but I used different buttons/Stick/bigger box: https://learn.adafruit.com/bluetooth-arcade-stick/overview

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