The Raspberry Pi 3 includes built in Bluetooth 4.1 alongside Wifi. Bluetooth can be used for a while pile of things from streaming audio to transferring files, but you can also run a full network stack over it. I have thrown together a quick video below of how to set it up with a computer running Mac OS.
s/while pile/whole pile/
😉
Looks neat! Is it also possible to do this directly between two Pi3s?
Have you tried to setup up the PAN the other way? Sharing a Pi’s internet connection with another device e.g. mobile phone.
I have not. Can’t see why though it wouldn’t be possible?
Is there any use case where sharing over BT is preferable to sharing over Wifi? Since the Pi3 has both built-in…
I want to connect my pi to my work’s laptop but wouldn’t be able to use neither WiFi nor cable as the Pi cannot connect to the WiFi at work and the Laptop cannot connect to the Pi at home because VPN will not allow it.
Cable I cannot use at work because it’s already in use.
So I will try to use bluetooth.
How do you setup the PI,
such that it automatically connects on a restart?
I’m using macOS Sierra version 10.12.1 and Raspberry Pi 3 Model B+ 2017 with the latest version of RASPBIAN STRETCH WITH DESKTOP (released on 2018-06-27 on this link: https://www.raspberrypi.org/downloads/raspbian/). I followed all the steps in your video. When I select “Connect to: Group Network” and click “Next”, it says “Device added successfully, but failed to connect”. How do I solve this problem and have the device connected?
I cannot connect to Group Network: “Connection Failed: The name org.freedesktop.Networkmanager was not provided by any service files”. I can connect to my Macbook Air as “Audio Source” but not “Group Network”. How do I solve this problem?
I solved my problem. I just installed network manager on my Raspberry Pi. https://raspberrypi.stackexchange.com/questions/29783/how-to-setup-network-manager-on-raspbian