Bluetooth on MacBook Pro 2018 (usb-c)?

[antonvh]

On my 2017 MacBook Pro, bluetooth was a capturable USB device. That macbook also had regular USB ports on the outside. On my new 2018 macbook, with only USB-C on the outside these are alle the capturable USB devices:

Apple Inc. iBridge Facetime HD camera [0210]
Apple Inc. iBridge Display [0210]
Apple Inc. iBridge ALS [0210]
Apple Inc. iBridge [0210]
Apple Inc. iBridge DFR Brightness [0210]
Apple Headset [0001]

How do I capture bluetooth in Virtual Box?

Thanks.

[mpack]

Do you have an unused bluetooth adapter connnected to a host USB controller? If yes then you can capture it. If not then you can't.

[socratis]

I'm sorry, maybe I'm not seeing it, but where is the Bluetooth in that list of USB devices? Can you post the output of:

• 
  VBoxManage list usbhost

[Martin]

I think that was the original question: Is the Bluetooth controller in the 2018 MacBook Pro still USB connected?

[socratis]

There's no other way to connect a Bluetooth controller AFAIK, they're all USB based/connected...

[mpack]

I'm not a MacBook user, nor ever planning to be, so I have no way of knowing if the MBPro 2018 needs a Bluetooth controller for standard hardware. I.e. why did it ever need one, why not USB throughout?

[socratis]

I'm not a MacBook user, nor ever planning to be

Oh, come on Don! I have Apple shares for crying out loud! Help a brother out, buy a Mac...

why did it ever need one, why not USB throughout?

The Bluetooth controller is connect via USB οn on the Macs I've owned/seen.

According to MacTracker, there are two MBP 2018 models, the 13" and the 15" one. Both of them have Bluetooth 5.0. And if they have Bluetooth, 99.99% it's via a USB controller. I'll wait for the output of the "list usbhost" command... And if that's not good enough the output of:

• 
  ioreg -p IOUSB -l -w 0

Here's what it looks like on mine (chopped for brevity), it's a USB alright:

+-o Bluetooth USB Host Controller@14300000  <class AppleUSBDevice, id 0x1000004b8, registered, matched, active, busy 0 (2095 ms), retain 21>
|   {
|     "sessionID" = 11942074782
|     "iManufacturer" = 1
|     "bNumConfigurations" = 1
|     "idProduct" = 33424         <-- ProductID in decimal, 0x8290 in hex
|     "bcdDevice" = 281           <-- Revision in decimal, 0x0119 in hex
|     "Bus Power Available" = 500
|     "USB Address" = 9
|     "bMaxPacketSize0" = 64
|     "iProduct" = 2
|     "iSerialNumber" = 0
|     "bDeviceClass" = 239
|     "Built-In" = Yes
|     "locationID" = 338690048
|     "bDeviceSubClass" = 2
|     "bcdUSB" = 513
|     "USB Product Name" = "Bluetooth USB Host Controller"
|     "PortNum" = 3
|     "non-removable" = "yes"
|     "IOCFPlugInTypes" = {"9dc7b780-9ec0-11d4-a54f-000a27052861"="IOUSBFamily.kext/Contents/PlugIns/IOUSBLib.bundle"}
|     "bDeviceProtocol" = 1
|     "IOUserClientClass" = "IOUSBDeviceUserClientV2"
|     "IOPowerManagement" = {"DevicePowerState"=0,"CurrentPowerState"=3,"CapabilityFlags"=65536,"MaxPowerState"=4,"DriverPowerState"=3}
|     "Device Speed" = 1
|     "USB Vendor Name" = "Broadcom Corp."
|     "idVendor" = 1452           <-- VendorID in decimal, 0x05ac in hex
|     "IOGeneralInterest" = "IOCommand is not serializable"
|     "IOClassNameOverride" = "IOUSBDevice"
|   }

[mpack]

We may be talking at cross purposes. Obviously if a PC has a bluetooth controller then it connects to the USB bus - they all work that way. The question I couldn't answer is whether the new MBP has a bluetooth controller at all, as that's an obvious answer to the question "why can't I see my bluetooth controller".

Ok, so next obvious question. Has the bluetooth been disconnected or disabled?

[socratis]

The question I couldn't answer is whether the new MBP has a bluetooth controller at all

It does as I said according to MacTracker (a database of all Apple things related), but the online specs from Apple (under Wireless) show the same thing; yes, there is a Bluetooth adapter.

Ok, so next obvious question. Has the bluetooth been disconnected or disabled?

I've never had in my 3 different Macs an issue with this. So, I'm a little bit puzzled as well...

[lucas72]

ok... I've been dealing with this issue since yesterday. My host is OSX 10.15.4 (Catalina), I'm hosting Win10... there's NO WAY to see the bluetooth inside Win10!
Am I missing something?!

[mpack]

Am I missing something?!

(1) BlueTooth is connected to the USB bus, i.e. it is implemented as a Bluetooth/USB adapter.
(2) USB devices can't be shared, they must be owned entirely by the host or entirely by the guest.

Hence, the guest can't own a device (the Bluetooth controller) which the host is using. On Windows hosts I believe the host can be robbed of a device (all host bluetooth connections will fail), vut OS X hosts use a different mechanism and it seems that OS X locks USB devices to prevent them being ejected.

It's a consequence of the fundamental difference between running an application in your host vs running it in a second (virtual) PC.