Parallels 26.0.0 and Bluetooth devices

[Rollo62 608]

Hi there,

I have see a new not that Parallels 26 is available, but with some not so nice news.
It says, translated from German:
 

Quote

Below is a list of features that are no longer supported and have been removed from Parallels Desktop for Mac 26:
...

Shared Bluetooth functionality. Bluetooth devices connected to your Mac (such as keyboards, mice, or game controllers) will continue to function normally in virtual machines.

Note: To connect a Bluetooth device directly to a virtual machine, you should use a USB Bluetooth dongle.

One of my main functions was to use MacOS as a last resort for debugging iOS BLE devices and their protocols.
Because the MacOS and iOS Bluetooth systems are fairly compatible, this has been a 100% error-free option up to now.

According to the text above, this now seems to be a thing of the past.

An external dongle brings with it a 99% probability of further new errors and problems during debugging, and 1:1 behavior between macOS and iOS may no longer be guaranteed.

Because multi-platform debugging under Delphi is currently almost completely unusable anyway, this is my last hope for testing external Bluetooth devices (Android debugging is extremely unreliable, iOS debugging has not been possible for some time, and macOS debugging has still been possible until now).

Yes, there is still the option of debugging under Windows with a BLE dongle, but that was also relatively tricky and not really compatible with iOS/Android, etc.
It starts with finding a compatible BLE dongle that works with Windows/macOS.

Does anyone else have the same concerns as me?
Maybe there are already solutions for this, or, at best, everything still works as before under PLS 26?

BTW: I'm still working on an Intel MacOS, which maybe also behaves different to the M1, regarding external BLE-Dongles.
 

 

[MrZ 2]

We've used the ASUS USB-BT500 for this purpose. Our experience is that it works better than using the built-in Bluetooth device.

[Rollo62 608]

5 hours ago, MrZ said:

We've used the ASUS USB-BT500 for this purpose. Our experience is that it works better than using the built-in Bluetooth device.

Thanks, that looks good, but I'm unsure if this is only working under Win11.

 

It only tells us Win11 ready, but nothing about MacOS.

 

My setup is on a MacBook (Intel x86), running Parallels Desktop VM with Windows and Delphi,
when debugging on the MacOS hardware it was always possible to access the Mac's BT device when running on this.
There three scenarios, I would think:
A.) MacOS -> PLS -> Win11 -> Delphi -> Debugging on MacOS hardware -> Accessing MacOS BLE shall be possible still ( I hope so )
B.) MacOS -> PLS -> Win11 -> Delphi -> Debugging on Win11 VM -> Accessing original MacOS BLE through PLS -> seems to be gone in the future

C.) MacOS -> PLS -> Win11 -> Delphi -> Debugging on Win11 VM -> Accessing BLE dongle via MacOS -> PLS making BLE dongle available in Win11 VM -> You mean this?

Does such Asus BLE dongle works for the Mac too, or doesn't it need to work under MacOS as it is handled by Win11 alone?
I've tried years ago to find some working dongle and gave up, as it is nearly impossible to get clear answers to the BLE dongle compatibility.
At that time, it was only said possible by a specific Allpe-compatible chipset and some hacky driver installation, as far as I remember.

 

[MrZ 2]

Yes, we used option C which worked well. If I remember correct we were on Fusion at the time, later switched to Parallels when we moved over to MacBook Pro M1's. At the same time we stopped using the iOS simulator due to lack of support for some third-party libraries. We're now only debugging on real iOS devices.

[Rollo62 608]

6 hours ago, MrZ said:

switched to Parallels when we moved over to MacBook Pro M1's. 

Thanks a lot.
So you say Option C is working on MacBook M1, or have you tested it also successfully under MacBook x86, because thats still my main system?
Maybe I will give it a try.