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Status on Sony Ericsson devices

It would be nice if people would provide information about

Serial Cable usage

Some Sony Ericsson phones are rather picky when it comes to the usage of serial cables. While some phones work with cables which just do voltage-level adaptation of the Rx/Tx lines, other phones insist (at least in OBEX mode), that there is a working hardware handshake via the RTS/CTS lines. Some phones are also happy if only RTS is supported.

No-name cables typically lack the RTS/CTS voltage-level adaptation and don’t connect the RTS and CTS pins. So, if the phone is succesfully brought into OBEX mode, but if the data transmission just stops afterwards (the phone just displays “synchronizing” but nothing happens any more), it might be a problem of the used cable, and it might be a good idea to try another cable. Typically, however, cables supporting RTS/CTS are more expensive.

Also, some serial cables do suck the phone’s battery dry in no time. This is due to the fact that they use the phone’s battery (via the phone’s connector pins intended to supply phone accessories) to power the serial voltage converter (converting approx. 0 … 3.3 V to something like 10 … -10V). A cable which allows to plug in the charger, too, is a good idea. Typically these cables provide an socket at their plug where the charger is supposed to be pluged in.

Finally, there are cables out there which are not at all inteded to be used for synchronizing data with the phone. These are intended to support firmware flashing. They use the same plug, but another pin connection. If the plug on the phone side of the cable can be opened, and if one knows how to handle a soldering iron, it is possible to rewire these cables for syncronizing data. Phone plug pinouts can be found on the internet, sometimes on rather suspicious sites. They should be taken with more than just a grain of salt.

More about serial interfaces in general can be found in this Wikibook.

Ericsson

Ericsson R320

The initial cable support started here

Ericsson T68i

Reported working

Sony Ericsson

Sony Ericsson J300/K500i/k700i

All have been working using pl2303 usb-serial cable, using Obextool 0.33, obexftp 0.10.7, on Kubuntu Dapper. Everything working fine but you need to edit obextool file in /usr/bin/ directing it to device /dev/ttyUSB0 rather than /dev/ttys1 as default. i could upload and download files

Sony Ericsson T300

Working?

Sony Ericsson T610/T616

Working? Sort of ;-) It works only once, then you have to un-plug the usb cable and plug in again for it to work once again. Tested with ObexFTP 0.20 from sources and 0.10.7+0.10.8pre9-3 from ubuntu dapper.

Sony Ericsson T310

See this howto

Sony Ericsson T630

IrDA working (see Sony Ericsson T630 and Linux via IrDA)

OpenOBEX’s obex_test works fine with USB, but obexftp works only once.
You have to unplug cable and plug in again, or use obex_test to connect twice. First time it fails to connect, but then it connects and obexftp works again.
Tested on Debian (sarge and etch)

Sony Ericsson V800

USB works with CDC-Wireless Mobile Communication.

Sony Ericsson K300

USB works partially with obexftp-0.19/openobex-1.1, can’t transfer files.

Sony Ericsson K300i

IrDA works with openobex-1.0.1 and obexftp-0.18

Serial cable works with obexftp and with obexfs.

OpenOBEX’s obex_test works fine with USB, but obexftp works only once.
You have to unplug cable and plug in again, or use obex_test to connect twice. First time it fails to connect, but then it connects and obexftp works again. Tested obexftp-0.20, openobex-1.2 on Mandriva 2007.

Sony Ericsson K310i

IrDA works with openobex-1.3 and obexftp-0.21

Sony Ericsson K500

Works’’ great ‘’(in some unknown configuation)

Sony Ericsson K500i

IrDA works with openobex-apps 1.0.0 and obexftp 0.19 (see Sony Ericsson k500i and Linux IrDA)

Sony Ericsson K530i

Works’’ with ‘’BT’’ and ‘’USB on Ubuntu 8.04 (Kubuntu). Problems with USB in Konqueror.

Sony Ericsson K600i / V600i / K608i

These phones are basically the same.

Vodafone V600i UMTS

USB Works in the following configuration:

Note, this is a re-branded K600i. There is a report below that the K600i didn’t work in some configuration.

K600i

Works with kdebluetooth which uses openobex

Serial Fails in the following configuration:

By using no-name cables, OBEX fails immediately (data transfer just stops). This is because the no-name cables did lack the required RTS/CTS hardware handshake support.

But also with an original Sony Ericsson cable obexFTP fails. The OBEX connection is set up, but no data can be found or retrieved. OBEX requests are either not processed or answered with an error code. Independent of the used UUID or with or without setpath.

The K600i is also available as Vodafone branded V600i. There is a report that OpenOBEX works with the V600i in some configuration.

USB Fails in the following configuration - totally independent of OpenOBEX:

The old USB driver is not capable of recognizing the K600i’s USB profile. acm.c has been rewritten (and now called cdc_acm.c) in some later kernel release. So it might well work on later kernels.

USB Works in the following configuration:

Instead of using /dev/ttyS0, I had to use /dev/ttyACM0 to access the K600i. To find out the right device unplug the phone, run udevmonitor --env and plug it again. Search in the Output for something like “DEVNAME=/dev/ttyACM0”. If there are more device names like this, try all of them using obexftp -t <DEVNAME> -l / until it works.
After a while it may stop working. Then un- and replug the phone and it will work fine again.

USB Works (Phone identified itself as K608i) in the following configuration:

Sony Ericsson K700

Works’’ great ‘’(in some unknown configuation)

Sony Ericsson K700i

Works’’ great ‘’(in some unknown configuation)

Sony Ericsson K750i

USB Works great in the following configuration:

Sony Ericsson M600i

USB (not tested)

BT Works in the following configuration:

IrDA (not tested)

Sony Ericsson W580

On Ubuntu

apt-get install obexftp

Connected the phone via USB

obexftp -u # revealed the interface number ( 0 in this example)
obexftp -u 0 -l #  gave a listing
obexftp -u 0 -g "path/xxx.JPG" # retrieved the imagefile

Works great !

Sony Ericsson W800i

Works’’ great ‘’(in some unknown configuation)

Sony Ericsson W810i

Bluetooth works with Firmware R4CE012

Sony Ericsson Z520x

Works with version 0.20, not with earlier versions, a patch was needed to make it work.

Sony Ericsson Z530i

BT Works

IrDA working

Sony Ericsson Z600

Serial Works with serial cable (DRS-10) + openobex-1.0.0-rel-3 + obexftp-0.10.7-3 + Ubuntu 5.10

Sony Ericsson K610i

USB Works

Using phone mode (or not selecting a mode) then
obexftp -v -u 0 -U synch -S -g telecom/pb.vcf
gets the contacts but so far cannot put contacts back with
obexftp -v -u 0 -U synch -S -p telecom/pb.vcf

However it is possible to update/restore the phone book by using the phone to save a back up of the phone book to the memory stick “Backup to M.S” then get the backup file:
obexftp -v -u 0 -c “Memory Stick/System/PIM/“ -g PB_Backup.vcf”
To put the backup file back to the phone with:
obexftp -v -u 0 -c “Memory Stick/System/PIM/“ -p PB_Backup.vcf”
Then use the phone to “Restore from M.S”

Phone’s memory stick (M2) contents should be available into obextool with :
obextool –obexcmd “obexftp -u 0”

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