Step-by-Step Freedom Pro Keyboard Setup with Android

by Brent on June 4, 2010 · 93 comments

We get a lot of questions from folks who have purchased the Freedom Pro BT Keyboard and are having trouble getting it setup. To help out a little bit here, I have copied page 19 of the User Guide and will add a couple of comments that may help you figure this out. I want to caution you to not get frustrated with this process. Bluetooth is just sort of clunky, regardless of the device platform, but when you finally get this to work, you will absolutely LOVE what it does for your device.

The Steps Direct from Freedom Input

Android Drivers Before installation

Because of restrictions on the Android Operating System we are not able to automate the installation process as much as we can for other platforms. Please ensure that you read the installation instructions carefully.
Also because of the operating system restrictions it is not possible to control the pop up menus via the keyboard and some functions keys may not work. If development support for these is added to the Android OS in the future we will add it to our drivers.

Installation and connection

Allowing non Android Market Application installation:

From the Home Screen press the menu button and select “Settings”.
Within the “Settings” menu select “Applications”.
Make sure that ”Unknown Sources” check box is ticked to allow the installation of non-Market applications.

Pairing the Keyboard:

Put the keyboard into SPP mode and switch it on.
Press in the recessed Pairing button for 5 seconds to put the keyboard into pairing mode.
On your Phone go to “Settings”, then “Wireless controls” and then select “Bluetooth Settings”.
Ensure that Bluetooth is turned on (the Bluetooth checkbox at the top is checked). Now click on “Scan for devices”.
At the bottom of the screen, under “Bluetooth devices”, you will see “Freedom Pro Keyboard” appear. Click on this to begin the pairing process.
When asked for the PIN enter 0000 (four zeros) and then click ok.
You will now see “Freedom Pro Keyboard Paired but not connected”. Please note that the connection is controlled by the keyboard drivers so the keyboard will never show as being connected within this Bluetooth manager.

Installing the drivers:

From your phones internet browser go to www.otadrivers.com
Select the Freedom Pro Keyboard from the list of products.
The website should automatically detect that you have an Android device and give you the driver file to download. If it does not automatically detect your device click on the link to manually download the drivers and select the “Android OS link” to download the file.
Once the file has finished downloading click on it to begin the installation process.
You will get a message saying what parts of the OS the keyboard will interact with. Click on ok to continue the installation.

Activating the drivers and connecting the keyboard:

On your phone go to “Settings”.
From the “Settings” menu select “Locale & Text” (if you are on 1.x) or “Language and Keyboard” (if you are on 2.x).
Under “Text Settings” ensure that “Freedom Pro Keyboard” is ticked. (This does NOT have to be exclusive. You can have multiple items ticked).
Ensure your keyboard is turned on and click on “Freedom Pro Keyboard Settings”.
Click on “Connect” and after a few seconds this will change to “disconnect” and your keyboard is now connected.
Now you need to select the Freedom Pro keyboard as the input method. Click on the “Type here to test your keyboard”.
Hold (Long Press) your finger on the text entry box that pops up for a few seconds and release.
On the “Edit Text” menu click on “Input Method” and then select “Freedom Pro Keyboard”.
Your keyboard will now be connected and configured. Now when you have finished using the keyboard just switch it off. When you wish to use it again switch it back on, wait a few seconds for it to automatically reconnect and then just use it.

Summary

Please make sure that you follow these steps in order. Most folks who are having issues have forgotten to pair their device with the keyboard. If you follow the steps outlined above, you will have a much better chance of getting this to work. And, keep in mind that you only have to do all this ONCE. After it is done, you should be good to go. That is, unless you do a massive wipe and upgrade of your device, in which case you may need to do the pairing step again.

More to follow: Rod has agreed to create some short videos to show exactly how this is done on a number of different Android devices. We will be working on that over the weekend and hope to have them available sometime next week. Let us know how your own process goes!

Update: See the Freedom Pro Keyboard Video Pairing Instructions

Tagged as: Bluetooth Keyboard, Freedom Keyboard

http://IAmCorbin.net Corbin

I bought a Freedom Pro Bluetooth keyboard and I just got an HTC EVO today (Android 2.2). It pairs just fine, but I can’t get it to connect. After installing the drivers and clicking connect, it does nothing.
http://simplemobilereview.com Brent

@Corbin which drivers are you using? Freedom Input? I would check to make sure the device is supported already. It should be similar to the rest but some of them have interesting quirks.
http://IAmCorbin.net Corbin

My bad…the EVO comes with android 2.1 not 2.2. I went to otadrivers.com and got the 2.1 drivers
Geoff

I have an HTC Desire. Followed all the instructions twice, but when I press connect nothing happens. Mostly it causes the phone to hang and re-boot. Any ideas for the Desire?
Thanks

http://www.simplemobilereview.com Rod

I am having the same issue on the HTC Incredible where the Motorola Droid works fine. I suspect after following all the steps you press connect and it almost appears the phone does not recognize you pressed the button.

Paul from Freedom has posted on the site and he sometimes responds during the business week. I have reached out to Paul @ Freedom

Here is a link to what he has said about failed connections. http://www.simplemobilereview.com/a-message-from-freedom-input-update-regarding-android-keypro-drivers/

http://www.freedominput.com Paul Bowles – Freedom Input

Thanks guys good post and sure to help a lot of people out.

@Geoff and Rod:
Rod I replied to your email this morning if you don’t mind I have copied my reply in to you in this post as it is relevant.

“Unfortunately the HTC Incredible/Desire is the one platform on the 2.0/2.1 drivers that is giving us the most problems. Also unfortunately the Eris had exactly the same problems when running 1.5/1.6. I’m not sure if 2.0/2.1 on the Eris resolves the problem or not (don’t think there has been an official 2.0/2.1 update for this yet). It looks like the Bluetooth stack is either not implemented fully or implemented different on these devices. We are investigating it at the moment but sadly do not have an incredible here to actually test it and see what is going on.

If you could please send me the firmware and kernel version numbers it will help to narrow down what is causing the problem.”

Basically the HTC Desire and HTC incredible running 2.0/2.1 and the HTC Hero and HTC Eris running 1.5/1.6 have the same symptoms but different cause. Basically everything goes fine until you hit connect then nothing happens. Unfortunately I do not have access to a Desire or Incredible at the moment to pull it apart and see what is happening but it looks like the Bluetooth stack is set up differently on these devices. We are trying to gather version numbers at the moment to pinpoint exactly what builds this issue is in.

So far it only seems to be these devices that are not working. On all the other ‘droid platforms there haven’t been any issues.

We are working on this though.

I would be particularly interested in hearing from anyone who has a hero or Eris running 2.0/2.1 OS who has tried the 2.0/2.1 drivers.

@Rod, looking forward to the videos. This has been on my “to do” list for awhile now but has had to be put on the back burner while I finish up the pre-product stuff on a couple of new products we have coming.

Geoff

Hi Paul, Any progress on the HTC Desire? I sent the firmware and kernel version numbers through about a month ago, wonder if this helped.
Thanks

Maris

Thanks for these instructions. I have a Nexus One on 2.2 (FroYo) and was able to download the latest drivers for the FreedomPro keyboard and have a successful install. It finally works with my phone now, including the punctuation and enter key. Now I can finally enjoy my keyboard purchase.

http://www.simplemobilereview.com Rod

That is awsome. I know @Paul at freedom will be happy to hear this. You also lucky to be running FroYo. I just gave my wife my HTC Incredible and switched back to my Motorola Droid just so I could have FroYo.

Thanks for letting us know your working. For those waiting I should finish the edits on the Android Pairing to Freedom Keyboard tonight. The iPad pairing to the Freedom keyboard is already up.

Luv

Works on N1 with early 2.2 build on the second try. You really gotta follow the steps in order
Brian

Okay… I’ve got an Evo 4g from Sprint. I’m running Android 2.1 update 1. I have successfully paired with my Freedom Pro Keyboard. I get things up and running, being able to type in English and write emails, send SMS’s, etc…

Then, out of nowhere, the keyboard will switch to Korean. Attempts to change it back to English seems to cause it to stop working until I uninstall the Freedom Pro drivers… then re-install and repair/reconnect.

Any suggestions?

Brian

Okay… when it randomly switches to Korean, I can usually exit out of what I’m doing and go into “Language and Keyboard>Freedom Pro Keyboard Setting>Keyboard layout’s>” and change it back from Korean into English.

It just gets irritating to have to do it every few minutes.

It’s also crashed a few times on me too. I think that was my initial problem when I first tried the OTA drivers (now that I know what I’m looking for). I think I got it working, but it switched to Korean and crashed within seconds of working.

Still, when it does work, it is awesome! I never expected the accessory keys to work, yet they do beautifully!

Anyway, I’m hoping the Korean/English bug will be fixed soon.
http://simplemobilereview.com Brent

@Brian We have had a couple of other user run into the Korean issue and Paul Bowles from Freedom Input was quickly able to point to the cause and the solution. Let me know if this resolves your issue.

Paul Bowles – Freedom Input June 2, 2010 at 4:48 am
@Ryan,

Shift+Spacebar switches between English and Korean (just press Shift+space or Ctrl+FN+1 to switch back to English). The square boxes are coming up when you are typing because you dont have Korean fonts installed. The Space+Shift had been a safe toggle during user testing (nobody had accidentally switched) and needed to be included for the Korean marketplace.

However Iâ€™m going to add an option into all of the drivers to disable it as if one person has hit the toggle accidentally then its likely someone else will too Check http://www.freedominput.com (news section at the bottom) as new driver releases will be announced here.

Brian

Thanks Brent for your fast answer!

I found the answer the previous message Mr Bowles posted and have already easily switched back from the Korean characters numerous times. Hopefully, those new drivers will come out soon.

I am loving the keyboard! I really have been loving the music function keys on it… i hadn’t been expecting that and now I can easily say that the keyboard wildly exceeds my expectations.

Heck, I wasn’t even planning on using it’s hidden cellphone stand, and now I find that I like it far better than the Evo’s kickstand… just great!

http://IAmCorbin.net Corbin

I had given up on the keyboard for a bit and have been busy with other things. I just retried all the installations steps, careful to follow each of them. It connected this time! I’m up and running, time to get connect bot installed and starting playing with SSH on the EVO
http://IAmCorbin.net Corbin

After playing around with the keyboard a little it seems to work pretty well. The hotkeys (home button for example) don’t seem to work, but I can setup the function key shortcuts (I set F1 to home). The enter key doesn’t seem to work though, it seems to be sending a space instead, anyone else having this issue?

http://www.freedominput.com Paul Bowles – Freedom Input

@Corbin – Some functions keys it isn’t possible to emulate on the keyboard yet (because of restrictions in the OS and development kit we have to work with). Does the enter key do this in every program or is it just 1 or 2 specific programs?

@Brian – Glad your enjoying the keyboard We have updated the Windows Mobile, Symbian and BlackBerry drivers to add the disable toggle option so Android is next.

Just want to say thank you to all of you that have posted on here. The feedback has been a massive help to our developers.

Brian

I know the Sprint Evo phones are being updated to Android 2.2 in a few days. Any info if I’ll need to update my drivers for the Freedom Pro keyboard?

Any word about getting rid of the English/Korean flipping on the drivers?

Alan Eliasen

Corbin,

You’re right that the enter key is broken in the Freedom drivers. In fact, it’s worse than that. In short, the driver fails to send KeyEvents for any but a couple of keys on the keyboard! Instead of generating a proper KeyEvent for the Enter key (or almost any other key,) it tries to insert a newline character, which means that most applications will break. Here is the detailed technical information I sent to Freedom:

————-

I’m attempting to use the Freedom Pro keyboard with my Motorola Droid
(Android 2.2) and found that,
when using the drivers from http://www.otadrivers.com as you recommend,(version
1.0.20 for Android 2.0 and above) the keyboard drivers do not emit
KeyEvents for most keys on the keyboard!

This is a critical, fatal flaw in design. The way that *any* Android
application recognizes and handles keypresses is to listen for a
KeyEvent. The Freedom Pro driver does not even generate KeyEvents for
most keys on the keyboard! For some reason, it does emit them only for a
small number of keys, including the backspace key, arrow keys, Esc, and
some of the specialized keys like SK1-SK3. The way that those keys work
in the driver *is actually the correct way.* For all other keys, the
driver is doing something very wrong and failing to emit KeyEvents. Your
software must be fixed to generate and inject those KeyEvents for *all*
keys, not just the few keys that currently work correctly.

This is immediately evident in the Enter key behavior. For all other
Android keyboards ever made, including physical keyboards and on-screen
keyboards, pressing the “Enter” key will do things like send messages in
the built-in Messaging application. (Because it generates the KeyEvent
listed below.) With the Freedom Pro, though, this erroneously inserts a
newline and never generates the proper KeyEvent! In fact, it never
generates a KeyEvent at all.

This breaks many, many applications that expect the enter key (or any
key on the keyboard) to trigger some behavior, and have no other way to
trigger that behavior. The same is true for any application that handles
KeyEvents of any kind. (e.g. video games that respond to the keyboard
don’t work at all with the Freedom Pro, as KeyEvents are never generated
except for a couple keys like the arrow keys. Again, the way that the
arrow keys work is one of the few places where the driver does the right
thing.)

No Android application will properly be able to recognize a key being
pressed if the proper KeyEvent is not generated! Again, generating
KeyEvents is THE way that Android sends messages from keyboards!

Whatever the keys like backspace and esc and the arrow keys are doing in
your code, that’s the *right* way to do things. All other keys are
handled as an incorrect kludge. Those kludges need to be removed. The
driver *MUST* generate a KeyEvent for every key pressed (including down
and up events.)

For example, pressing the Enter key on a correctly-working keyboard will
generate the following KeyEvents:

I/Keydebug(24970): Keycode=66, KeyEvent{action=0 code=66 repeat=0 meta=0
scancode=28 mFlags=8}
I/Keydebug(24970): Keycode=66, KeyEvent{action=1 code=66 repeat=0 meta=0
scancode=28 mFlags=8}

Note that there is one action for key down, one for key up.

NO KeyEvents are generated by the FreedomPro driver for the enter key,
nor for any but a small number of keys!

This is an absolutely critical flaw and demonstrates a fundamental
misunderstanding of Android’s event model. Any independent developer who
understands Android’s event model will verify this.

You can test key events emitted yourself by adding the following snippet
to any of your applications in a KeyListener that is attached to an
EditText:

OnKeyListener keyListener = new OnKeyListener()
{
public boolean onKey(View v, int keyCode, KeyEvent event)
{
android.util.Log.i(“Keydebug”, “Keycode=” + keyCode + “, ” +
event.toString());
….
}
}

editText.setOnKeyListener(keyListener);

This will log the message to a place that can be seen with “adb logcat”
and a connected Android device with USB debugging turned on. You should
emit a KeyEvent with *every* key pressed on the keyboard.

In addition, the Freedom Pro driver constantly spews (useless) debug
information to System.out for every keypress, causing a huge waste of
memory and processor:

I/System.out( 1159): Repeat thread key pressed
I/System.out( 1159): Repeat thread iteration
I/System.out( 1159): Repeat thread waiting until key pressed

This must be removed.

It also demonstrates misunderstanding of the proper way to handle keys
that are held down.

To summarize,

*Every keypress on the keyboard *must* generate a KeyEvent, or it simply
won’t work with any Android application.*

Fixing the behavior of the Enter button to generate KeyEvents is a sev-1
bug that you can reproduce in almost any application, including using
the searchbar, messaging, etc. Patching this behavior IMMEDIATELY (to
generate KeyEvents) is critical to basic functionality of the keyboard.

Elfar

Hi, I also have the Desire issue, installs fine but unable to connect and the device reboots/freezes. Any fixes expected, and where to lookout for those, at http://www.otadrivers.com?

Thanks for the step-by-step

-elfar
http://www.IAmCorbin.net Corbin

Enter seems to be sending space in every application I have tried
Thomas

Incredible users should read this thread. Top entry says it all.
http://community.htc.com/na/htc-forums/android/f/91/p/2336/8570.aspx

Gee, that may be why I can’t get the phone to connect to the keyboard.
Mary

help!! I am not able to figure out how to actually write anything doh!!! I finally was able to pair it but now I want to use it @#$%^&*() Please help or send me to a site that can help me. I have been unable to find a site with support for non techies Mil gracias,

M
Thomas

Paul Bowles – Freedom Input wrote, “Unfortunately I do not have access to a Desire or Incredible at the moment to pull it apart and see what is happening but it looks like the Bluetooth stack is set up differently on these devices.”

How many people have gone out and spent $95 – $120 on your keyboard only to find out it doesn’t work with their phone. After spending the money to design and manufacture these great keyboards, can’t you spend a several hundred dollars to get these phones, and fix the problem so you can sell more of them? Surely you’re making enough money to do so and thus expand your market with happy clients. I personally can’t wait to use this awesome keyboard. I think the engineering of it is wonderful and I don’t fault FreedomInput for the problem but it’s in your best interest to solve the problem. Otherwise it looks like you’re just not doing enough to support your product.

Also, why not acknowledge and clearly explain this problem to would be clients?

I’m wondering if I should take the keyboard back (I hate that idea) or wait? Are you confident that you or HTC or Google will resolve this problem? If so, I’m happy to wait.

Thomas
James

Before I purchase this keyboard and waste a lot of time and money, will it work for a rooted HTC EVO running Android 2.2 (froyo)? I have a backup with 2.1 that I will use until bluetooth is fixed in Froyo, but I would prefer to switch to Froyo ASAP, as it is much faster for games.

http://www.simplemobilereview.com Rod

@James I do not believe it will. I have had no luck with HTC phone like the Eris or Incredible. I am going to try the Droid X in 2 days but I suspect it will not work

http://www.freedominput.com Paul Bowles – Freedom Input

@James I know the drivers are working ok with the Evo as standard but not sure about when its rooted with 2.2

@Thomas, I did write a long reply to you yesterday but unfortunately it has disappeared. Will repost it when I have time. Short version is that it is a HTC issue but it looks like the updates on some phones are fixing it (someone posted that its now working with their HTC Desire after updating the firmware but that post has gone too).

http://www.simplemobilereview.com Rod

Sorry we had an issues yesterday and lost 2hrs of content. I will repost your comment as we have it in email form

http://www.freedominput.com Paul Bowles – Freedom Input

Thanks Rod.

http://www.freedominput.com Paul Bowles – Freedom Input

@Thomas
The problem with buying new devices is that there are new devices being released on a weekly basis (we have to check compatibility with BlackBerry, Android, iPhone, Windows Mobile Pocket PC, Windows Mobile Smartphone, Symbian S60, Symbian UIQ3, etc).

Unfortunately as much as we would like to it is not possible to get every new phone as it comes out. We do have a wide range of phones which we do compatibility testing with and we also use third party labs for testing as well but there is only so much you can do with them.

Look at this list of Android devices for an example of how many devices we have to test with. This is just one platform as well (and one of the smaller ones at the moment).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Android_devices

“Also, why not acknowledge and clearly explain this problem to would be clients?” – This is a good point. We have not taken the Android drivers out of beta or officially added Android as a compatible operating system because of exactly these issues. Its only over the last couple of weeks after speaking to many other Android developers that we have put the pieces together to find out what exactly is going on. You are completely correct though and I will update our Android news article and the product information to state the devices that we are having issues with.

To clarify what the problem is:
It appears from our own testing and from speaking to the Android development community as a whole that some HTC devices are not running the latest Bluetooth stack and are actually running the Bluetooth from Pre 1.5 Android versions.

The general consensus (though I have seen no official word from HTC) is that there is a compatibility issue with the HTC Sense Interface which is why the newer Bluetooth stack wasn’t included on some devices (though I’m personally not 100% convinced this is the case).

The effected devices appear to be:
1.5/1.6:
HTC Hero/Eris

2.0/2.1/2.2:
HTC Desire
HTC Incredible (Not confirmed either way but suspect issues)
HTC Legend (Not confirmed, as above).

The reason I suspect its not just a Sense UI thing is that the HTC Evo (which has the Sense UI) works fine. The difficulty is that it is not easy to clearly explain this, when there is no official word from HTC we have to be very careful about what we say. The other difficulty is that some Android build versions may work and others may not.

With regards to a fix. For the new HTC devices I expect that future firmware updates will address the Bluetooth issues. There is sadly nothing more we can do until the bluetooth stacks are updated (at least not without getting customers to root their phones and install another bluetooth stack which is not something we can do). As above though there is no word from HTC about this so we really don’t know.

Believe me I truly understand your frustration. When we first began working with Android I was hoping we would have moved them into the fully commercial production a couple of months ago. If it was some obscure Android devices that it wasn’t working with it wouldn’t be so much of an issue but HTC really do hold the market share on Android devices at the moment and when some of their flagship devices don’t appear to have the Bluetooth stacks on that they should it doesn’t do a lot for my mental health (just ask my other half, she is sick of me muttering to myself in the evenings about “bluetooth stacks & firmware versions” and spending hours reading through SDK release notes).

We are doing everything we can but or resources are not unlimited (in terms of being able to purchase new devices) and we can only work with what the devices manufacturers gives us (in terms of operating systems and Bluetooth stacks).
Thomas

Hi Paul,
As expected, very clear reply. That means a lot and is very appreciated. I’m so angry at HTC for their screw up that I could spit nails. Not only for failing to provide a proper stack but also their poor communications on when or if this would be fixed. More than this, in my communications with HTC, they are blaming Google. Very unsatisfying and a huge black mark on HTC.
Thomas
Se7en2

Just wanted to say thanks for this step-by-step guide, it made setting up the keyboard on my EVO a breeze. I did notice one thing, though. If I try to use certain function features of keyboard (specifically, function+I (internet)) or any of the white keys that have specific functions (email, contacts, calendar, etc., all located on the far left side of the keyboard), it force closes the Freedom Pro drivers and I have to uninstall and reinstall in order to get the keyboard working again. I‘ve tried powering down after the force close, but the keyboard still won‘t work unless I uninstall/reinstall. Most of the other function keys work great (music/media, volume, home).

Anyway, not a big issue, as I just avoid using those keys that cause the problems. So far, I love it. It‘s taking a bit of getting used to, especially the space bar, the backspace key, and the b-key (used to hitting b with my left hand), but it‘s still 10x faster than the onscreen keyboard.

Again, great guide, keep up the great work.

Se7en2

So, I used this keyboard for an extended period for the first time a few days ago, and it worked flawlessly. I attended a seminar and used it with Note Everything to take notes, as well as answer emails, since I was out of the office. I didn’t have to pull out my laptop all day. Not to mention all the compliments I got (my buddy called me James Bond, hehe). Next time, I’m leaving the laptop at home.

http://www.freedominput.com Paul Bowles – Freedom Input

Glad you liked the keyboard

I’m obviously biased but the keyboard does make life a lot easier. Before I worked for Freedom I had a couple of jobs where I was traveling all the time and I wish I had known about the keyboards back then. Nothing worse than having to lug a laptop around all day just to take notes and reply to emails.

Regarding the problem you have seen (where some key presses are causing the driver app to fall over). This is something I have only seen a couple of times but we do know what is causing it so it should be fixed shortly.

Jimothy

Has anyone gotten this to work with an emulator such as SNESoid? When setting up the controls, it recognizes my input from the keyboard. However once in game, nothing I press on the keyboard works.

http://www.freedominput.com Paul Bowles – Freedom Input

@ Jimothy,

I haven’t looked at this yet but it is on my list (as is using the keyboard in SSH). It may not be possible for us to do anything about this as it is the application that is not accepting the input. We will still have a look and see if there is anything we can do.

Desireuser

Hi, are there any news about using the keyboard with the desire yet?
I’m just about to buy one of those things to make my desire complete.

http://www.freedominput.com Paul Bowles – Freedom Input

Unfortunately I don’t have anything “concrete” on the Desire yet. I have spoken to a couple of people that have said after a recent software update the desire now works but I haven’t been able to 100% confirm the details (such as what update it was and if it is the same from all carriers).

Hashem

Hello,
I just bought the EVO last week, and I tried the steps many times and did everything. It seems that the newest Android version on my EVO is having problems with this keyboard. Is that true? The guy at ‘Freedom Keyboard’ said that Sprint or HTC is trying to fix the bug, but I wanted to make sure.
Thanks

http://www.freedominput.com Paul Bowles – Freedom Input

Hi Hashem,

The Evo has been working ok so it might just be something that is missing from the setup. Can you explain what you have done and at what point it is not working?

Hashem

Hello Paul,
Thanks a lot for helping me & many other people out. It actually worked for one second, then it stopped working. I did a soft restart, turned bluetooth on/off, disconnected keyboard, etc.. I’ll go read other posts above to see if I can find out how, but if it’s not here, please let me know. Thanks!!!

Brian

Hashem,
I had a similar problem when I first tried my Evo phone out with the drivers. Delete the driver from the phone, reload it, and run it again (fairly easily done using the Astro file-manager app).

I don’t know if the drivers will work with the Android 2.2 coming out in a few days, but I do know that the keyboard and driver work with the 2.1 Evo build.

(proud Evo owner).

http://www.freedominput.com Paul Bowles – Freedom Input

We haven’t been able to test 2.2 with the Evo ourselves. The drivers you already have though (for 2.1) should work fine when you upgrade to 2.2 though.

We have tested with 2.2 on the Nexus One and another unreleased device which we have on loan at the moment and the drivers work great. Other then that I don’t think there have been any other official 2.2 devices out there (unless they have come out in the last week which I may have missed) so we couldn’t test anything else. A few of the cooked versions we have tried worked ok as well.
Marc

I love the Freedom Pro keyboard – but am getting a force close when I power it off. The work around is to “disconnect” before power down – but thats kinda time consuming for a quick – type an email and fold it up person.
joe

Has this been confirmed to work properly on the 2.2 Evo?

Thanks. I’m looking forward to picking one up.

Marc

I love the Freedom Pro keyboard – but am getting a force close when I power it off. The work around is to “disconnect” before power down – but thats kinda time consuming for a quick – type an email and fold it up person.

http://www.freedominput.com Paul Bowles – Freedom Input

Hi Marc,
That is the first instance I have heard about someone getting a forced close when powering the keyboard off. What phone and firmware version do you have?
Does it come up with the force close as soon as you switch the keyboard off?

Brian

I get the same thing. The force close may not come up for hours afterwards.

Dave

Same has happened for me in multiple android versions – the android driver is launching 3 services which show up in the “Running Services” utility on Android – when I’m done using the keyboard, is there any way I can simply stop or exit the driver? I see no reason or need for the driver to continue running. If there’s a way to start the driver, shouldn’t there be a way to stop it?

So like Brian, my force close shows up hours later. If I had a way of just quitting the driver and have it exit everything it needs to, that would be ideal.

Dave

Sorry, forgot to mention using the Evo 4G with 1.0.21 for Android OS 2.0 and above. This to my knowledge is the latest / greatest available from ota …

fer

Pleeeeeease help w/ desire 2.1 all messed up

http://www.simplemobilereview.com Chris

This is a pretty active thread so I am sure someone will help you or at least help you understand what the issue is. Can you give some more detail on what you are seeing?
http://www.freedominput.com Paul Bowles – Freedom Input

Sorry you are having problems. Can you please let me know exactly what the problem is that you are experiencing?

Park

I’m using Korean ver. Freedom Pro on Nexus One (Android 2.2 Froyo), and fortunately it works with the current driver at the first try.
Of course (as I expected), when I press special keys on the left, or function keys such as Fn+I, the driver was killed. It didn’t matter for me since regular keys and some basic functions including Ctrl+C, V properly works.
However, when I turn it off and try again, my phone can’t connect. (although Bluetooth is on and other settings are unchanged) Sometimes the phone is rebooted, or the Connect button changes to “Disconnect” but it was immediately returned to “Connect.” So I reinstalled the driver and it also failed to connect.
The only solution I found is “repairing” the device with my phone before every use of it. If you long-touch the Freedom Pro on the Bluetooth setting screen, you can unpair with the keyboard. After that, press “Search” button to ensure that the device disappears on the list. When you repair the keyboard, it can be connected until you turn it off.
It’s a little bothering, but there’s no choice for me =( I think that Desire is almost same, for Nexus One and Desire have the same platform. Anyway, I hope this bug will be fixed soon with the next driver update. For Koreans, Freedom Pro is the only localized keyboard which supports Android phones.
barry

Thanks to your step-by-step guide, I managed to get my new HTC Desire and the Freedom Pro Keyboard properly linked. It took about 3 to 4 hours or so though !
The extra time was necessary to first remove HTC Sync 2.0 and upgrade to 3.0 (which proved to be a very slow download on home Wifi).
Then finding out how to input the PIN number (0000) proved to be a problem. The panel which appeared on the HTC screen requiring this didn’t automatically give any “virtual keyboard” on-screen to make inputting easy, and some “fiddling” was necessary.
However, now it is working, the keyboard is a great help for travel, etc. !
As I have to work in several European languages, the lack of accents is a problem however. My next task is to see if I can use function/quick keys to provide them. Any suggestions ?
B a r r y

http://marieevebaron@gmail.com Marie-Ève Baron

I actually have the same issue with accents. Floks in Québec write French on a US QWERTY keyboard. We all need this language to be available soon It’s just keymap in Android.

Look at Canadian French in Windows

Please help

http://www.freedominput.com Paul Bowles – Freedom Input

Hi Marie-Ève,
Are there any keys or accents in particular that you need?
Accented letters such as È can already be typed on the keyboard (I believe the accents on the keyboard cover most European based languages such as French and Spanish).

To access the accents you need to use the Alt Gr button.
For Example to type é:
Hold Alt Gr and press H (look at the green accent characters on the middle row of keys).
Release Alt Gr and press e and you will get an accent e printed on screen, é.

If there are other accents or characters that you need please let me know and it is certainly something we can look at adding in future driver builds.

http://simplemobilereview.com Brent

I don’t personally have any help to offer, but Paul Bowles from Freedom Input scans the comments on this page frequently and let’s see if he has anything to offer. Thanks for the comment!
John

I followed the above steps on my new Gtablet and all was well until I tried to select an input method. The Freedom Pro was not listed! I am connected but I cannot select the keyboard. Any ideas?

Thanks

John

http://www.simplemobilereview.com Rod

Have you seen the video for pairing?

http://www.simplemobilereview.com/video-pairing-freedom-pro-keyboard-with-android-device/

Let me know if that helps

John

Rod

Thanks for responding.

Yes, I watched the videos. The keyboard is paired and connected but when I long press the test area and click Input Method the keyboard is not listed.

John

http://www.simplemobilereview.com Rod

Ok we will try to replicate.
http://www.simplemobilereview.com Rod

Have you gone in to Keyboards in settings and made sure that keyboard is checked as available?
http://www.freedominput.com Paul Bowles – Freedom Input

Hi John,

I suspect that it may be something that has been disabled on the Gtablet (but unfortunately have no way to test this myself).

One way to test this would be to download something like Swype or other virtual keyboard from the marketplace and see if you can select this as the input method or if it has the same issue.

John

Hello Paul

Thank you for responding.

I have already tried other keyboards. Here are the results:
Downloaded BetterKeyboard and let it self install. The symptoms were the same, when you try to enable the drivers you get a FC. The Gtablet is my first Android device so I am not fully up to speed on it.

I moved the BetterKeyboard drivers to /system/app and rebooted. This installed the drivers pre-enabled and BetterKeyBoard works fine.

I then did the same with the Freedom Pro drivers and now the drivers and the keyboard are working.

There is still, however, a problem that will keep me from using the keyboard until it can be resolved.

I am using Python 2.6 on Android for a test vehicle and created a one line script:
print “Hello, John”
Much to my suprise I got a syntax error on the ” key. I tried it again using ‘ instead of ” and it failed again. I then tried the exact test with both the BetterKeyboard and stock TapNTap keyboards and they both work fine.

This seems like an encoding problem. I have encoding set to UTF-8. Is there a table that could have an incorrect entry for these keys?

Thanks for your help.

John
John

Hello Paul

Thanks for responding.

I had already tried downloading other keyboards but they had the same result, a FC when you tried to enable them. The Gtablet is my first Android device so I am not fully up to speed on it.

I moved the BetterKeyboard drivers to /system/app and rebooted. This caused the driver to be installed pre-enabled. BetterKeyboard now works fine!

I then did the same with the Freedom Pro drivers and the drivers and the keyboard now are working.

There is still, however, a problem that will keep me from using the keyboard until it is resolved. I am using Python 2.6 on Android as a test vehicle. I created a one line test script:
print “Hello, John”
I was suprised when I got a syntax error on the ” symbol. I tried again with the ‘ key and got a syntax error again. I repeated the test with BetterKeyboard and the stock TapNTap keyboards and they both worked fine. A usb keyboard also works fine on this test.

This seems like an encoding problem. I am using UTF-8. Is there a table somewhere that I might check for an error in these key entries?

Thanks for your help.

John

Alan Eliasen

The Android drivers are clearly broken here. Here’s the detailed bug report I sent about this to Freedom:

I’m attempting to use the Freedom Pro keyboard with my Motorola Droid
(Android 2.2) and found that,
when using the drivers from http://www.otadrivers.com as you recommend,
(version 1.0.20 for Android 2.0 and above) the wrong keycodes are being
emitted for several characters. Common keys are actually emitting
bizarre and wrong high Unicode characters, making it impossible to, say,
write programs on the Android because the incorrect characters are being
generated.

The erroneous characters are:
1.) The quotation mark key, ” erroneously sends Unicode U+201C.
(That’s actually a “LEFT DOUBLE QUOTATION MARK”, NOT a normal quotation
mark. This should be ASCII 34 (U+0022), the quotation mark.

2.) The apostrophe key, ‘ erroneously sends Unicode U+2018. (That’s
actually a “LEFT SINGLE QUOTATION MARK”, NOT a normal single quote.)
This should be ASCII 39 (U+0027).

3.) Hitting the “enter” key apparently emits an incorrect keycode that
seems to break most applications. For example, in Messaging, hitting
“enter” on the Freedom Pro does *not* send the message like it does with
all other keyboards, but just rather inserts a newline. This bug breaks
a *whole lot* of applications that expect that hitting the enter key
triggers an event, and don’t have any other way to trigger the event.

The keyboard is unusable for its purpose with these errors. For
example, you simply *cannot* write programs or use any program that
expects double or single quotes, as the characters emitted are wrong and
unexpected. The characters may sorta look the same to a human, but they
are simply the wrong characters. This is a critical flaw.

The error probably lies in the keyboard driver, as testing with a trial
version of “KeyPro – Android Trial” from the Android Market does not
have these bugs (and it also allows you far more customization of keys
and repeat rates, etc., but it’s for-pay only, outside the Market, and
you can only buy it with PayPal.) However, the
keyboard, as shipped and supported by Freedom is effectively broken.

Furthermore, the fact that you neglect to have these drivers available
in the Android market means that you can’t automatically get fixes to
users, nor inform them in any way.

http://www.freedominput.com Paul Bowles – Freedom Input

Hi John, Alan,

I have been speaking with Alan about this as well off site but thought I would reply here so everyone can see the answer.

Alan is correct in saying that Keyevents are the main way to accept input into the Android OS. However they are not the only way. We are actually using another method because it is then a LOT easier to add additional language support and change keyboard layouts.

The two real issues that where raised are the behavior of the enter key and the output of the ” and ‘ symbols.

Thanks to Alan’s hard work and persuasive argument on this we will be changing the enter key to use the keyevent method. The fix for the ” and ‘ symbols was already planned and should be ready early next week (would have been ready this week but I had to put the Android development on hold while we looked into the above).

At this point in time we will not be changing the whole driver set to use the keyevent method (and will continue to just use keyevent for keys that are standard across all language layouts such as cursor keys, etc). If in the future this starts to cause a compatibility issue then we will switch them around but at the moment there is nothing to be gained from it and it will make changing the keyboard layout for other languages more difficult.

Regarding the market place. We are looking at putting the drivers on the market place as the ability to automatically push updates to users is very, very useful. However to get them on the market place we also have to change them. For example you can’t upload an app without a UI and a launch icon which is completely unnecessary for keyboard drivers. We intentionally didn’t include a launch icon and UI as I don’t know about most people but my tab already has a million icons I have to scroll through each day and I wouldn’t want another one on there that I will only ever click on once.

It also posses problems in that we would then have to split the drivers into different locations (current drivers support, English, German, Korean with Chinese, French, Swedish, Norwegian, Danish and Finnish in the works). Sometimes a bug fix is for one language layout only and pushing an update out to everyone would be pointless. So we would have to set up at least 9 different versions of the driver which then makes it a lot more difficult to manage.

It is something I would like to do because it also works around the issues of carriers that block side loading apps but its not quite as simple as just uploading them on there.

Brian

Paul,

Thank you for your replies and continued support of the drivers. I have an HTC Evo and use the Freedom Pro Keyboard. I‘m writing to put another vote in for fixing the enter button code.

I actually use my phone and keyboard to write articles, short stories, etc… because of it‘s ease of always being able to have with me, the combination of camera/videocamera/word processing, etc.

However, in most word processing apps I‘ve used (primarily Docs to Go in combination with Google Docs), the ENTER key is not recognized when re-loading saved documents. Instead of a properly formatted article, I see a single paragraph several pages long.

Please consider fixing this a priority.

http://www.freedominput.com Paul Bowles – Freedom Input

I uploaded a new version of the drivers last week which changes the input method used for the enter button and should should the ” and ‘ issues out as well.

You can download it by going directly to http://www.otadrivers.com.

Please note that you will need to remove the old drivers before installing the new ones this time (rather than doing an upgrade install).

JW

My new Freedom Pro keyboard will not connect to my HTC EVO. I have paired the keyboard; it claims to be “Paired but not connected” in Bluetooth Settings. The keyboard is enabled; the box is ticked under “Text settings” in “Language & Keyboard”. I can select “Freedom Pro Keyboard” as an Input Method.

However, when I press “Connect” nothing happens, and eventually the Freedom Pro Keyboard Driver stops unexpectedly, and I get the Force Close pop-up window.

Hope that new Android driver is available soon!

Waterfromice

dealing with the same issue

Couchfisher

Ditto as JW

http://www.freedominput.com Paul Bowles – Freedom Input

What Firmware version do you guys have on your Evo and what Carrier are did you get them from?

This is a difficult one as I have had a lot of people telling me all is well on the Evo once they have the latest updates. There do seem to still be people that are having issues though so I’m suspecting that some carriers are either not rolling out updates or have not addressed this issue in the updates they have rolled out.

Unfortunately I’m not sure what to suggest. This isn’t something we can fix via the drivers so we are reliant on the manufacturer and carriers to roll out fixes for this.

The only short term solution I can think is one that I would not actually suggest doing, rooting the phone and installing a custom rom image on it which doesnt have the Bluetooth crippled. This of course invalids the warranty and if done wrong could brick your phone (so I didn’t say to do it!! ).

JW

Hi Paul,

Thanks for the reply. My Evo is from Sprint; I think HTC EVO is exclusive to the Sprint network.

Sprint rolled out a system update mid-December. I am running the latest stock system from Sprint, 3.70.651.1. I have the latest Firmware, Profile, and PRL. My phone is hardware revision 3.

I’m reasonably skilled with computers and confident I could successfully root my phone, but I’ve never had a compelling reason – until now, maybe.

If there’s anything I can do to help you debug this, just ask.
Brian

Paul, I just tried the new driver and it does fix the problem in Google Docs and Docs to Go. My text messages and other apps (like Twisty which plays text-based games like Zork) all work fine now too.

Thank you for your continued support.

I also wanted to mention that I am on my fifth Evo (love the phone, hate the quality). All of the phones (which included versions 2, 3, and 4) were all able to work with your drivers and keyboard.

As to why I’m on my fifth phone, 1st’s charging port wasn’t soldered correctly, 2nd bricked in the store during activation, 3rd refurbished phone had cracks in the phone case, speaker was blown, and wouldn’t hold signal, 4th had light leakage, water damage stickers missing/tripped. Fifth is a non=refurbished and seems to be working perfectly so far.

JW

RTFM!! Somehow I missed the first, critical step: Put the keyboard in SPP mode.

It’s working now.

http://www.freedominput.com Paul Bowles – Freedom Input

lol

Glad its working now. Was looking into this during the holidays and couldn’t find any reason why it wouldn’t have worked on the Evo.

Don Rademacher

I have been using the Freedom Pro Keyboard with my Droid X since sometime in August. I have tried using it in SPP mode, and have had a problem in navigating the keyboard. For example, I was able to use the SK1 key to access the menu for my word processing (Office Pro), but was not able to navigate in the menu – the arrow keys would not navigate – and the enter key would not select. I did not spend much time trying anything else in SPP mode.

HID mode – connecting in this mode requires entering the passcode on the keyboard as well (using the ’0000′ passcode and the enter key on the keyboard successfully pairs the keyboard with the Droid X). In this mode, navigation works well (the arrow keys are functional, the enter key selects from the menu, etc.). And typing functions pretty well, with a couple of issues, as follows (note these issues are independent of the software that I am typing in – they occur in Office Pro, Documents to Go (also on my Droid X), and even in Gmail):

In HID mode, I have experienced (1) an intermittent delay in what I have just typed showing up on the screen, a delay that can be several words long – again, this is intermittent; it does not occur continually, and (2) a fairly frequent instance of repetition of a letter keyed (a keystroke) ranging from 10 to more than 30 to 40 duplications. The effect would be as follows: asssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssspect. Beside being annoying, this requires backing off the letters including the first occurance of the offending letter in order to get normal line spacing to function again. The identical problem happens with spaces duplicating as well. Most of the time it occurs with the second position, but it also occurs in other positions.

I would be very interested in understanding what causes these two problems. Could it be the HID mode I am using? If so, how can I get the SPP mode to navigate?

Please advise.

http://www.freedominput.com Paul Bowles – Freedom Input

Hi Don,

Regarding the Arrow keys in SPP mode. I will take a look at this and see what we can do. I have got a new version of the drivers going through testing at the moment which might resolve this. I will check what the testing status is today and get them uploaded this afternoon if they are ready.

Regarding the HID mode issues you are having.
First thank you for the information. I wasn’t aware that HID input support had been enabled on the Droid X so that’s good to know.

The issues with the HID mode could be related to each other. The key repeat issue happens when the keyboard gets disconnected unexpectedly and the phone see’s the downstroke for the key but never the release stroke (so just keeps repeating the character until it notices that the keyboard is disconnected).

The delay in typing can be cause by a couple of things. The most likely are either that the system is just lagging (can happen when things in the background suddenly spike in system resource requirements, even the phone searching for a new network can sometimes cause this). The other cause of this is that the keyboard is momentarily being disconnected, the letters you are typing are getting stored in the keyboard buffer then when it reconnects again the keyboard is sending them all at once.

As to why its disconnecting, this is hard to say. The first things I would check would be:
* Make sure the batteries in the keyboard are ok.
* Make sure there is nothing else using the bluetooth on the phone (things like handsfree kits, PC syncing and even other applications).
* Check and see if there are any firmware updates available for your phone (it could be an issue with the way the HID or Bluetooth has been implemented).

If you have access to a PC with Bluetooth on it I would suggest connecting the keyboard up to that and trying it out. This will rule out any possible issues with the keyboard itself. there is a possibility that it could be a fault with the keyboard but to be honest in the year we have been selling the Pro keyboard and the i-connex (basically the same internal hardware as the pro) I haven’t seen one issue with a fault on the HID connection.

Like I said I will check where are testing is on the new Android drivers which should hopefully sort out the issue you have with the SPP and will post back here when they are available which should sort everything out for you.

Don Rademacher

Thank you, Paul.
The Droid X is capable of multiple bluetooth connections (unlke the Palm Tx unit I was previously using.) So, the unit is connected to my bluetooth earpiece at the same time it is connected to the keyboard. The keyboard batteries were recently replaced and so they are still functioning with adequate power. I am typing this message with the keyboard and each letter has a noticable lag to it. But thus far, it has not spawned any sets of multiple letters or spaces. Of course, the processor speed on the Droid X is on the order of 1 Ghz, if I remember correctly, and one would think that would be more than powerful enough to handle the processes that this unit sees. I did try this keyboard function with more software than just the main wordprocessing software I use, and did replicate the problem in other software usage beside that when using Office Suite Pro. This AM when I was doing word processing I have on the order of 20 to 30 occurances of multiple letters or delays when typing, maybe more. However, having just finished and now typing this response, I have not yet had a single instance of either problem, just a jerky lag for each letter I type. So, what gives? In the internet environment the performance is entirely different, with no malfunction of multilple letters or spaces, or lags while I type several words before they appear, just a noticable delay as I type each letter. Yet everything is still connected by bluetooth as I type: my earpiece, and even the laptop I sent my prior wordprocessing job to.
By the way, in SPP mode, there is problem with much more than arrow keys, even enter key will not select if something is highlighted in a menu.
HID, aside from the annoyance of the multiple spacing and long lags, is functional, without, however, at least some of the auxilliary functionality apparently available according to the keyboard layout. However, only the backspace key works (the del key functions the same as a BS key. Capslock does not seem to be functional, but double entry on the caps key produces the same effect.
So the performance in the internet environment offffffffffffffffffffff a (first case of multiple letters, and not a simulation, a real incident. So in this environment, every letter has a lage, and once in a long while there is a delay or disconnect that produces multiple letters.
Paul, maybe you could borrow a Droid X and try the connectivity yourself. A little bold of me to suggest, perhaps, but it might be an interesting puzzle for you, if you have the time.
Regardless of that, I look foreward to what you think about this.
Thanks.
Don Rademacher

Paul
I wonder if the driver is not located on the phone but rather on the card. It seems to me that most of the issues happened after the Froyo upgrade.
I’ll check with verizon but do you know?
Don Rademacher

Froyo was supposed to minimize phone storage and maximize card storage as a part of its advantage over the prior version, if I understood things.
Don Rademacher

Paul, I wanted to let you know that yesterday I paired the keyboard with an prior phone, windows mobile unit, and had flawless interface between keyboard and phone. Then this Am when I wanted to connect with the Droid X the keyboard would not connect. Evenatually I solved the issue by unpairing and re-pairing the keyboard and Droid X, however, this did not initially work, when I tried to accomplish the pairing. Initially, they would pair, but would not connect. Eventually, out of frustration and experimentation, I made the Droid discoverable during the pairing process. After doing that, I paired, entering the 0000 passcode into both Droid and keyboard and after doing that, instead of immediately pairing , I got a request on the Droid to pair, and after entering the code on the Droid and keyboard again, connection was established, and the connection was apparently constant, because I did not have the lag and multiple letter issue, as I had had in the past. I tried this twice, by turning off both Droid and keyboard, and the second time they connnected automatically and again there was flawless performance. What is your take on this , based on my description?
Brian

With the last update, the driver no longer closes when you uncheck it in the language settings. Now you have to force close it.

HTC Evo, unrooted, Froyo.
dragonriot

now that gingerbread is out, I hope you will be updating the drivers again. after the 2.2 update, this thing became my new laptop… I use it for school, writing documents and taking notes…. it is win.

dragonriot

also, if you need roms that don’t have a f’ed up Bluetooth stack, check out xda-forums.com and grab whatever you like. I’m using a droid incredible with gingerbread, AOSP, instead of sense… and the keyboard is now perfect. my Rom is called omfgb, but there are others like cyanogenmod on the forums as well that don’t have sense

Williamvivian

Dear Paul – I have the Galaxy Tab running Froyo 2.2. It connects fine, works great. After sometime of leaving the Tab and keyboard connected and idle, the Tab becomes extremely and unuseably slow. Then I get the force close message “The application Freedom Pro Keyboard Driver (process com.freedom.pro) has stopped unexpectedly. Please try again.”

Even after force closing, the tab remains unuseably slow, till I reboot.

Can you help?
http://www.dragonmedicinehealing.com Anna Fruchterman

Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! Your video saved me. I had even spent a bit of time on the phone with a help line that did not help at all when trying to pair the keyboard with my phone. The video made it simple and painless even for a non-techi like me.

http://twitter.com/RodSimmons Rod Simmons

No problem. Glad the video helped and you watched.

Follow us on Twitter ans we always talk about cool technical topics like this

Ayndwyer

Thank you! This was very helpful. I’ve tried a number of keyboards and was having trouble with the Freedom Pro as well. Your comments and step by step directions were easy to follow and it works! Yeah!
http://twitter.com/DanAntonson Dan Antonson

This is great! I’m connected and it’s working! Couple issues though, it switches to Korean when you hit “Shift + Space”? Any work arounds for this? It’s a bit annoying. Also, the App is not stable at all, I’m getting a ton of force closing. Once it’s up and running it’s good. Also the “Auto-Reconnect” is definitely not working.

Ideas / Thoughts? I’ve tried uninstalling the driver and reinstalling, with no luck. Would this get better with Gingerbread – my Samsung Infuse is suppose to get it. Otherwise, it’s a slick setup!
Albento

After I paired and connected the Freedom Pro, I no longer can use my Motorola 720 headset, it just does not connect anymore. I tried stopping the the drivers, but it did not solve the problem. I have an LG Revolution from Verizon. Anybody knows a fix?