Is it possible to use a Laird BT820 Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) dongle as a USB to VSP bridge? If so, is it possible to VSP into the target and then use UwTerminal to connect to the target over the air to compile and download code?

Answer

No. VSP is a customized service that uses smartBASIC, so it is not possible since the BT820 is an HCI device. As such, the module assumes that the stack and all supporting utilities exist within the host/OS. Essentially the BT8xx series devices are a pair of Bluetooth radios, one Classic BT (3.0) and one BLE (4.0). For example, the BT820 provides BT (3.0) connectivity when plugged into a Win7 system as Win7 supports this natively. BLE does not work. When used with a Win8/Linux system, the BT800 provides both Classic BT and BLE connectivity as both are natively supported by the OS.

In order for VSP to work with the BT820, the module requires that an application be written to run on the host PC with native BLE. This application needs to understand the customer characteristics and service being passed to it by the OS over HCI. We currently have not written any Windows VSP software.