ESP32 Mouse/Keyboard for BLE HID

ESP32 implementation for HID over GATT Keyboard and Mouse (Bluetooth Low Energy). Including serial API for external modules (compatible to Adafruit EZKey HID).

Compatibility

Due to the wide variety of hardware & software combinations, it is hard to guarantee compatibility. Nevertheless, we try to test this project with as much devices as possible.

Tested devices by the AsTeRICS team:

Note: On some iPad devices, there might show up a notification in the Bluetooth menu, that this device may affect WiFi or Bluetooth performance. You could ignore this error, according to StackOverflow there is no clear reason for this message, maybe it is related to the additional WiFi interface of the ESP32 (other user report this error if a normal mouse has an additional USB-dongle).

Note: If you can report the compatibility status for a device, we would be happy to add a list of community tested devices, just open an issue with the label device-testreport.

Building the ESP32 firmware

Please follow the step-by-step instructions of Espressif's ESP-IDF manual to setup the build infrastructure: Setup Toolchain

With idf.py build or make you can build this project.

With idf.py -p (PORT) flash or make flash you can upload this build to an ESP32

With idf.py -p (PORT) monitor or make monitor you can see the debug output (please use this output if you open an issue) or trigger basic test commands (mouse movement or a keyboard key press) on a connected target.

Note: Currently tested IDF version: release/v5.0 (other ones won't be supported!)

esp32miniBT vs. Arduino Nano Connect

This firmware is used on 2 different devices in context of our assistive devices:

• esp32miniBT module: This board is located in this repository and is used as addon for v2 FLipMouse, FABI and FLipPad PCBs which use either a TeensyLC or a ProMicro controller.
• Arduino Nano RP2040 Connect: Version 3 of FLipMouse and FLipPad (maybe FABI as well) use this Arduino board, where we have a RP2040 controller AND the ESP32 on the same board (more RAM, more flash, cheaper than 2 boards).

Note: Please select the correct type of board in idf.py menuconfig!

Note: If you want to use this firmware on a custom board, you can select the external UART interface settings in menuconfig; for our boards the pinning, baudrate and UART config is pre-defined.

Usage via Console or second UART

Control via stdin (make monitor)

For basic mouse and keyboard testing, some Bluetooth HID reports can be triggered via the keyboard when the make monitor console is running (see Espressif IDF docs: https://docs.espressif.com/projects/esp-idf/en/latest/api-guides/tools/idf-monitor.html ).

Control via 2nd UART

This interface is primarily used to control mouse / keyboard activities via an external microcontroller.

Commands

Each command is started with a '$' character, followed by a command name (uppercase letters) and a variable number of parameters. A command must be terminated by a '\n' character (LF, ASCII value 10)!

Note: We do not test these on a regular basis!

HID input

We use a format which is compatible to the Adafruit EZKey module, and added a few backwards compatible features.

Mouse:

Keyboard:

Note: currently we only support the US keyboard layout.

Joystick:

RAW HID input from sourcecode

If you want to change anything within the sourcecode, it is possible to send an HID report directly via:

hid_dev_send_report(hidd_le_env.gatt_if, hid_conn_id,
                  HID_RPT_ID_MOUSE_IN, HID_REPORT_TYPE_INPUT, HID_MOUSE_IN_RPT_LEN, mouse_report);

Use according HID_RPT_ID_*/HID_*_IN_RPT_LEN, depending on input type (mouse, keyboard). The HID report data is located in array, passed as last parameter of hid_dev_send_report.

Mouse & Keyboard input from sourcecode

Please use the functions provided by esp_hidd_prf_api.c.

Credits and many thanks to:

• Paul Stoffregen for the implementation of the keyboard layouts for his Teensyduino project: www.pjrc.com
• Neil Kolban for his great contributions to the ESP32 SW (in particular the Bluetooth support): https://github.com/nkolban
• Chegewara for help and support

and to Espressif for providing the HID implementation within the esp-idf.