Bluetooth devices on virtual machines

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Limp Gawd
Joined
Apr 6, 2012
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Has anyone had any luck whatsoever getting Bluetooth devices to be accessible from within a virtual machine of any kind, assuming of course the host machine has the requisite Bluetooth bits and pieces?

I've tried this with a Windows 7 and 8 guest on either a Windows 7 or Linux (both Ubuntu and Mint) host, using Virtualbox. No dice. While the Win 7/8 virtual machine will see the host's Bluetooth device, if I install the USB extensions and set up a filter for the Bluetooth device, the VM is unable to make a Bluetooth connection.

Originally, I was trying to get this to work so that I could run my cell phone's Windows-only support software, which can connect to the phone via Bluetooth, from within a Linux host OS. Now, I want to make it work out of sheer stubbornness.

I asked about this on the Virtualbox forums, but no one had any ideas.
 
If its a USB device I think it should not be an issue. I know that fusion inside OSX will pass bluetooth of mac to windows. If running vsphere if the bluetooth is usb based it should work.
 
The Bluetooth device being used is built in to the laptop I'm doing all this on, but it's a USB device all the same. Most such devices are, which is fine because Bluetooth can hardly push the limits of USB 2.0 (and even that's a stretch!).

I guess this is just a limitation of Virtualbox. Or maybe of the Nokia software. More experimentation is indicated. For example, I'll perhaps try pairing a Bluetooth headset, or the phone without the Nokia software, to the virtual machine.

eta:
One hopeful sign is that the Bluetooth device shows up on the Windows 8 virtual machine (under Device Manager) exactly the same way that it does on the host machine when I am not running VB. The Bluetooth radio simultaneously disappears from the host machine's Device Manager. At least they're not "fighting" over the device.
 
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