I'm unable to activate bluetooth in the armbian build above.  Confirmed bluetooth working in the vendor radxa bookworm xfce build.

 

Here's what I see in dmesg that may be relevant:

 

...

[    9.329177] kernel: Bluetooth: Core ver 2.22
[    9.329247] kernel: NET: Registered PF_BLUETOOTH protocol family
[    9.329261] kernel: Bluetooth: HCI device and connection manager initialized
[    9.329281] kernel: Bluetooth: HCI socket layer initialized
[    9.329296] kernel: Bluetooth: L2CAP socket layer initialized
[    9.329337] kernel: Bluetooth: SCO socket layer initialized

...

[   11.165207] kernel: [BT_RFKILL]: bluetooth_platdata_parse_dt: get property: uart_rts_gpios = 77.
[   11.165235] kernel: [BT_RFKILL]: bluetooth_platdata_parse_dt: get property: BT,reset_gpio = 17.
[   11.165248] kernel: [BT_RFKILL]: bluetooth_platdata_parse_dt: get property: BT,wake_gpio = 12.
[   11.165261] kernel: [BT_RFKILL]: bluetooth_platdata_parse_dt: get property: BT,wake_host_irq = 11.
[   11.165269] kernel: [BT_RFKILL]: bluetooth_platdata_parse_dt: clk_get failed!!!.
[   11.165326] kernel: [BT_RFKILL]: Request irq for bt wakeup host
[   11.165815] kernel: [BT_RFKILL]: ** disable irq
[   11.165979] kernel: [BT_RFKILL]: bt shut off power
[   11.166001] kernel: [BT_RFKILL]: bt_default device registered.
[   11.166198] kernel: input: bt-powerkey as /devices/platform/wireless-bluetooth/input/input2

...

 

I found a thread over at dietpi that talks about radxa zero 3w hardware rev with a different bluetooth controller.

https://dietpi.com/forum/t/radxa-zero-3w-bluetooth-not-working/20555/11

 

Can confirm that I have the same bluetooth module listed in dmesg

 

spot@radxa-zero3:~$ dmesg | grep -i aic8800  
[   18.041504] AICWFDBG(LOGINFO)	aicwf_sdio_chipmatch USE AIC8800D80
[   18.058640] rwnx_load_firmware :firmware path = /lib/firmware/aic8800/SDIO/aic8800D80//fw_patch_table_8800d80_u02.bin  
[   18.075178] rwnx_load_firmware :firmware path = /lib/firmware/aic8800/SDIO/aic8800D80//fw_adid_8800d80_u02.bin  
[   18.082304] rwnx_load_firmware :firmware path = /lib/firmware/aic8800/SDIO/aic8800D80//fw_patch_8800d80_u02.bin  
[   18.136946] rwnx_load_firmware :firmware path = /lib/firmware/aic8800/SDIO/aic8800D80//fmacfw_8800d80_u02.bin  

 

I feel dirty for solving it this way but I don't understand enough about the system to fix it properly.

 

There's something goofy with the bluetooth controller in these chips and radxa works around it by resetting the UART connection with a service file that calls rsetup.

 

You can manually fix/repair/start bluetooth with the following command but you need to run it once every time you reboot:

https://forum.radxa.com/t/bluetooth-not-working-zero-3w-official-os/24072/5

hciattach -s 1500000 /dev/ttyS1 any 1500000 flow nosleep

 

radxa has a service file that resets the bluetooth UART1 /dev/ttyS1 on boot.  To get it installed you need to install librdui, rsetup, and rsetup-config-aic8800-ttys1 from the radxa githubs

https://github.com/radxa-pkg/rsetup/releases/tag/latest

https://github.com/radxa-pkg/librtui/releases/latest

 

So the most current file links as of today are:

https://github.com/radxa-pkg/librtui/releases/download/0.1.6/librtui_0.1.6_all.deb

https://github.com/radxa-pkg/rsetup/releases/download/0.4.12/rsetup_0.4.12_all.deb

https://github.com/radxa-pkg/rsetup/releases/download/0.4.12/rsetup-config-aic8800-ttys1_0.4.12_all.deb

 

Then cd to wherever you download them to and run:

sudo apt install ./librtui_0.1.6_all.deb
sudo app install ./rsetup_0.4.12_all.deb
sudo apt install ./rsetup-config-aic8800-ttys1_0.4.12_all.deb

 

and reboot.

 

then confirm with your tool of choice, or bluetoothctl:

spot@radxa-zero3:~$ bluetoothctl
hci0 new_settings: powered bondable ssp br/edr le secure-conn cis-central cis-peripheral 
Agent registered                     
[CHG] Controller 98:03:CF:D2:2C:55 Pairable: yes
[bluetooth]# exit
spot@radxa-zero3:~$    

 

Enjoy!

 

 

 

Edited March 13, 20251 yr by alansrobotlab

Thanks for this! 

Thank you for the solution!!! I struggled for days on this.