A step by step guide to setup a Bluetooth keyboard and mouse on the Raspberry PI

A lot of people is having problem setting up a Bluetooth keyboard and mouse on the Raspberry PI. Things get more complicated when your wired keyboard or mouse does not work or prevent your Bluetooth dongle from working. There is hope. This step by step procedure will let you install them or at a minimum let you know what does not work. It uses only the command line interface. It is targeted for the Wheezy Debian distribution.

• First of all, if you already tried to set them up and they do not work, start with a fresh install of the OS. This will rule out anything you have done before that would prevent this procedure from working.
• Plug the Bluetooth dongle directly on the Raspberry PI board.
• Boot the Raspberry PI and connect to it using SSH from another computer if possible.  Otherwise, use a wired or wireless keyboard. Logon as pi, password raspberry.
• Switch to root

sudo bash

• Install all the updates.  It will take a while.

apt-get update
apt-get upgrade

• Enable dbus

update-rc.d -f dbus defaults

• Reboot

reboot

• Reconnect as described above. Logon as pi, password raspberry. Switch to root.
• Install the required packages.  It will take a while.

apt-get install bluetooth bluez-utils blueman

• Reboot and reconnect as described above. Logon as pi, password raspberry. Switch to root
• Make sure that your Bluetooth dongle is recognized. If not, unplug it and re-plug it.

lsusb

• Make your Bluetooth device discoverable. Refer to the device manual.
• Make sure that your device is seen by the Raspberry PI. Take note of its MAC address (ex. 75:EF:82:69:D2:83)

hcitool scan

• Pair the device. When requested, type a pin like 0000 and hit ENTER. If you are pairing a keyboard, type the PIN you have entered and hit ENTER on the keyboard you are pairing. If you are pairing a mouse, you also need to type a PIN of 0000 when requested and hit ENTER. This PIN might depends on the mouse manufacturer.

bluez-simple-agent hci0 75:EF:82:69:D2:83

• Make the device trusted.

bluez-test-device trusted 75:EF:82:69:D2:83 yes

• Connect the device. After a few seconds, your device will be usable.

bluez-test-input connect 75:EF:82:69:D2:83

• Repeat the steps from "Make your Bluetooth device discoverable" if you need to install another device.
• When you will reboot, the devices will reconnected automatically after a few seconds.

This procedure worked for the following devices:

• Cambridge Radio Bluetooth dongle
• Microsoft Bluetooth Mobile Keyboard 6000
• Apple Bluetooth Keyboard (iPad keyboard)
• HipStreet mini bluetooth keyboard
• Merkury iPad keyboard
• RocketFish Bluetooth Mouse
• Razer Orochi Mouse
• iPazzPort Bluetooth (Model KP-810-10BTT)
• Ultra eXo mini keyboard/touchpad