USB & Bluetooth support in WSA

[bnkoppad]

Is your feature request related to a problem? Please describe

USB and Bluetooth are marked not supported in Android 12.

Describe the solution you'd like

Hardware interfaces USB, BT on Win11 are required to be accessible in WSA. This shall help point of service android apps support installation on WSA.
Consider an Android POS app running on WSA can connect to barcode scanner and print the receipt on successful transaction. Printer can be USB, BT, or network based.
Scanner can be BT , USB based.

Could you please enable these features on WSA ?

Describe alternatives you've considered

USB barcode scanner with keywedge mode support works on WSA. But USB printer is not getting detected in WSA.
Bluetooth devices are also not detected in WSA

Please specify the version of Windows Subsystem for Android

2207.40000.8.0

[kevinkieselbach]

Hi, thank you for this feature request. This isn't currently on our scheduled roadmap, but we're always listening to the community to prioritize new features.

[andrewleader]

Hi @bnkoppad, we'd love to learn more about your scenarios! Can you give us some more info about your scenarios? Are you running a business that has POS devices that you'd prefer to be Windows-based? Or are you developing POS apps? Thanks!

[arlomedia]

This affects my apps, too. I have two existing music apps that can send and receive MIDI through USB. (I see that the Android MIDI system isn't supported in WSA, but I use a third-party MIDI library as a fallback.)

[bnkoppad]

Hi @bnkoppad, we'd love to learn more about your scenarios! Can you give us some more info about your scenarios? Are you running a business that has POS devices that you'd prefer to be Windows-based? Or are you developing POS apps? Thanks!

Hi @andrewleader We are working with couple of partners, they are into fashion retail and consumer stores. Currently they have POS and display apps used separately. for consolidation, it would be ideal to use - win11 + WSA to run both on single device.
Enabling reuse of existing Android POS, digital signage apps directly on WSA benefits than developing it for Windows.
POS apps use printers, scanners for their functionality, for which peripheral BT and USB support is required in WSA.

[andrewleader]

@bnkoppad this is exciting to hear! We would love to talk more in depth about your scenarios and learn whether you have any other requirements (like how you would want to deploy apps, hardware requirements of these machines, etc). If you're interested in talking more with us, could you email us at wsa-feedback@microsoft.com? Thank you!!

[jake-brown-maps]

Bluetooth support is a key feature that will allow our app users to utilize external GPS devices. We would be happy to answer any questions or help test.

Jake Brown
Product Engineer
Esri

[andrewleader]

Hey @jake-brown-maps, it's great to hear from you and ArcGIS! Please also send us an email at wsa-feedback@microsoft.com, we'd love to learn more about your scenarios, for example whether you'll be publishing your app to the Amazon Appstore or how you'd be planning on distributing your app to customers! We'll start reading some more about ArcGIS till we hear from you! Thanks! 😊

[chasetec]

It might be useful to organize the bluetooth request into two distinct requests.

1. This request for Bluetooth supported via an additional USB device over USB pass-thru. Similar to https://source.android.com/docs/devices/automotive/start/passthrough
2. Direct Bluetooth and BLE #90 for Bluetooth support that maps the Android bluetooth stack to the Windows Windows.Devices.Bluetooth Runtime API.

Number 1 is probably much easier to achieve but 2 is the ideal since it would support sharing the Bluetooth hardware already in the system with WSA.

[cst8t]

Hi @bnkoppad, we'd love to learn more about your scenarios! Can you give us some more info about your scenarios? Are you running a business that has POS devices that you'd prefer to be Windows-based? Or are you developing POS apps? Thanks!

Hello, another scenario I have (if its any help) is using an app for device management/update (such as the Bose Music app with Bose headphones) that's not available otherwise on Windows.