Broadcom Bluetooth

Broadcom Article description::Bluetooth 4.x devices mostly based on BCM20702, BCM4354, BCM4356 chipsets and used in various devices including USB-dongles, hybrid WIFI+Bluetooth embedded chipsets and such.

Hardware

Mostly complete list of supported devices: https://github.com/winterheart/broadcom-bt-firmware/blob/master/DEVICES.md

Device Make/model Status Vendor ID / Product ID Kernel driver(s) Kernel version Notes
USB Dongle Asus BT-400 USB Works 0b05:17cb btbcm 4.2 Requires firmware
USB Dongle Targus ACB75AU Works 0a5c:21e8 btbcm 3.4+ Requires firmware brcm/BCM20702A1-0a5c-21e8.hcd

Security Considerations

Recently several vulnerabilities have been discovered in the Bluetooth stack such as CVE-2018-5383, CVE-2019-9506 (KNOB), CVE-2020-10135 (BIAS) and more. Since Broadcom has stopped active support for its consumer devices, your system may be subject to security risks. You will have to use these devices at your own risk. The repository maintainer can't provide security fixes.

Installation

Kernel

KERNEL Broadcom Bluetooth support
[*] Networking support  --->
    <M>   Bluetooth subsystem support  --->
        Bluetooth device drivers  --->
            <M> HCI USB driver
            [*]   Broadcom protocol support
            [*] Broadcom protocol support

Firmware

Mostly Broadcom Bluetooth stack requires external firmware, supplied with Windows drivers. You can check this by using following commands:

user $dmesg | grep -i bluetooth
Bluetooth: hci1: BCM: chip id 63
Bluetooth: hci1: BCM20702A
Bluetooth: hci1: BCM20702A1 (001.002.014) build 0000
bluetooth hci1: Direct firmware load for brcm/BCM20702A1-0b05-17cb.hcd failed with error -2
Bluetooth: hci1: BCM: Patch brcm/BCM20702A1-0b05-17cb.hcd not found

Luckily, you can use sys-firmware/broadcom-bt-firmware package which install most recent firmware files for Broadcom Bluetooth:

root #emerge --ask sys-firmware/broadcom-bt-firmware

After installing you need to reinsert Bluetooth device or reboot system for applying firmware. After that your output should looks like that:

user $dmesg | grep -i bluetooth
Bluetooth: hci1: BCM: chip id 63
Bluetooth: hci1: BCM20702A
Bluetooth: hci1: BCM20702A1 (001.002.014) build 0000
Bluetooth: hci1: BCM20702A1 (001.002.014) build 1467
Bluetooth: hci1: Broadcom Bluetooth Device

Configuration

After enabling kernel options and installing firmware, you should proceed to Bluetooth manual.

Troubleshooting

Kernel requires BCM.hcd or BCM<CHIPSET>.hcd

Some VID/PIDs not yet defined in kernel driver so btbcm cannot properly identify your device:

user $dmesg | grep -i bluetooth
Bluetooth: hci1: BCM: chip id 63
Bluetooth: hci1: BCM20702A
Bluetooth: hci1: BCM20702A1 (001.002.014) build 0000
bluetooth hci1: Direct firmware load for brcm/BCM.hcd failed with error -2
Bluetooth: hci1: BCM: Patch brcm/BCM.hcd not found

In this case you need to retrieve VID/PID manually via lspci or lsusb command:

user $lsusb
...
Bus 003 Device 005: ID 0b05:17cb ASUSTek Computer, Inc. Broadcom BCM20702A0 Bluetooth
...

Here your VID/PID - 0b05:17cb. Next, check Devices list and choose your firmware. After that just copy firmware file into name that requires kernel:

root #cd /lib/firmware/brcm
root #cp BCM20702A1-0b05-17cb.hcd BCM.hcd

After that reinsert device or reboot system.

After installing firmware device still won't work

Some Bluetooth controller (for example, BCM4354 and BCM4356) are integrated to WiFi chipset (this can be BCM43XX 802.11ac Wireless Network Adapter or just simple generic Broadcom PCIE Wireless). These devices requires two kinds of firmware - first for WiFi, and second for Bluetooth. Without WiFi firmware Bluetooth will not initialize and will not work properly. Firmware for WiFi already included to kernel, but you may need to do additional work to place correct NVRAM.

Here example how it can looks (note about brcm/brcmfmac4356-pcie.txt loading - this is your customized NVRAM):

user $dmesg
usbcore: registered new interface driver brcmfmac
brcmfmac 0000:02:00.0: firmware: direct-loading firmware brcm/brcmfmac4356-pcie.bin
brcmfmac 0000:02:00.0: firmware: direct-loading firmware brcm/brcmfmac4356-pcie.txt
Bluetooth: hci0: BCM: chip id 101
Bluetooth: hci0: N360-11
Bluetooth: hci0: BCM4354A2 (001.003.015) build 0000
bluetooth hci0: firmware: direct-loading firmware brcm/BCM4354A2-13d3-3485.hcd
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