Yosemite Handoff-capable Bluetooth adapters?

[derFunkenstein]

I don't have a Bluetooth adapter but since I have an iPhone and an iPad, and I would like to use Handoff, I just need to know what to buy. Will any Mavericks-supported USB Bluetooth adapters work, or do I need a specific one?

Thanks for your input!

edit: here are a couple of sources that re discussed in this thread:

on eBay from the UK - about $93 shipped to the US, 50GBP + 7GBP shipping: http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/201159402207?_trksid=p2060778.m1438.l2649&ssPageName=STRK:MEBIDX:IT

in the US for about $106 shipped from Florida, USA: http://www.osxwifi.com

For the OSXWifi card, I'm comfortable saying that it works as advertised. Handoff support listed in System Information, no kexts needed, wifi and bluetooth pairing work great. With the help of demonknight9 I got Continuity working from the Hack to my iDevices. Troubleshooting tip: sign out of iCloud on the Hack and back in if nothing seems to be talking.

Installation was pretty simple. Connect the USB cable to the card (with the right orientation! listed in instructions) and to the motherboard USB header (which again can be plugged in wrong so read carefully!) and then screw it in. Put your computer back together and screw on the antennae. Fire up the Hackintosh and voila, it works!

I've created a Flickr album if you want to see more details:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/derfunkenstein/sets/72157648512088878/

Also, just a note: Windows 8.1 will not auto-install the drivers for Bluetooth or wifi. You need to download Apple's Boot Camp drivers and install from the ZIP. The Bluetooth driver is actually in the $WINPE$ folder and a manual install from Device Manager, and the wifi driver is in Drivers\Broadcom (just pick the right version of Windows, either 7 or 8.x) with an installer app that does it automatically. Don't run the main Boot Camp installer, because that won't work since it's not a real Mac.

WinPE drivers are included so that people with Bluetooth keyboards/mice can install Windows using the Apple Bluetooth card, so that's why it's manual and in a different folder.

 

[BrunoNFL]

It looks like netkas could do it by using a newer mac wireless card.
http://netkas.org/?p=1356
And I have read somewhere that bluetooth dongles (USB) do not enable handoff.

 

[derFunkenstein]

I'd seen the bit about USB devices on MacRumors a while back. This is probably the netkas article you're thinking of:

http://netkas.org/?p=1341

His is on a real Mac Pro that uses a custom connector, so I guess I'll just to watch the forums here for someone who has one that works and buy that model. Unfortunately neither my Mac Mini (2007 Core 2 Duo model) nor my eMac can run Yosemite, so it's up to a Hackintosh to get it done.

 

[BrunoNFL]

Yes, I know it is a real mac pro, but as has been shown here in the forum, you can make your own airport card using a pci adapter and plugging a real mac airport card, so it should work if you do it using the latest macs airport cards.

 

[derFunkenstein]

OK I'll dig around the forum. Didn't realize it was possible for desktops. I was asking about this guy and it sounded like the USB part (which is where the Bluetooth is) wouldn't work.

edit: found it in the Networking forum. Here's the site: http://x86wifi.blogspot.com

Got some reading to do this weekend.

edit again: that's like, way old and doesn't support Bluetooth. Hmm...

edit 3:

there's an adapter for the BCM94360CD and BCM94331CD cards, and the cards themselves. Looks like for $50 I could make a single-slot Bluetooth 4.0 + 802.11n setup. I don't currently have wifi in this machine, so maybe it's worthwhile.

Still, I might wait a bit to see if others have success with something else.

 

[MysticalOS]

http://www.osxwifi.com make pre made adaptors that they guarantee will work. I have one in my hack and it works out of box bluetooth and wireless. It uses an imac card with a pci adapter all ready to go in hack.

No kext editing, no modifications of any kind needed. It's out of box.

 

[Cougarcat]

http://www.osxwifi.com make pre made adaptors that they guarantee will work. I have one in my hack and it works out of box bluetooth and wireless. It uses an imac card with a pci adapter all ready to go in hack.

No kext editing, no modifications of any kind needed. It's out of box.

You ordered it from them? The site looks a little...shady. There seems to be two models that are identical, except one is a preorder?

 

[demonknight9]

The only problem with that adapter is that it's at least twice the money that it's worth, possible more. $99 is a ridiculous price! You can get the parts separately for less than half the amount they ask. I have someone selling me one for 50 and I'm still thinking about it. It's a lot of money for a wifi and bluetooth adapter. The wifi/bt itself costs 17. They are making a killing. If the USB bt 4.0 cannot be activated for handoff I might have to buy the 50 one though. I guess it's just a matter of wait and see for the next couple of weeks

 

[luix0]

You ordered it from them? The site looks a little...shady. There seems to be two models that are identical, except one is a preorder?

I recently bought in eBay the Adapter http://www.ebay.com/itm/BCM94360CD-BCM94331CD-to-PCI-e-1X-Adapter-/111466486967 and the Card http://www.ebay.com/itm/Apple-Broad...i-PCI-E-WLAN-Bluetooth-4-0-card-/191029765954 and Im waiting for arrive, and another sellers offer the two pieces but its a little more expensive and are the same parts.

This parts enable the bluetooth apple wireless keyboards works on bios/efi https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ERaaU8ZTMwk

 

[MysticalOS]

I tried to go cheaper on ebay route first. I got an adapter that only had 3 antenna's because i could not find any with 4. first mistkae.

Second mistake, even though seller said it was from an imac, it ended up being same card in all regards except it was an OEM DELL card, so it wouldn't load bluetooth in OS X without kext hacking but then handoff didn't work since it wasn't an apple vendor card.

The price from the link i gave was worth it considering i ended up with 3 useless wifi cards and other issues. The "shady" link has solid email support, tests cards before sending and will even prove it's a genuine imac card. You aren't just buying adapter you get adapter plus card plus it's pre built. Priced high sure but if you go cheap, you may have to do the soldering yourself or have parts that don't actually work. So It's just for the sake of ease I suppose.

Heck FYI, the seller that sent me a bad Dell Oem card on ebay, was the one linked as an example in the netkas post, so yeah.