furble - Flexible Unified Remote Bluetooth Low Energy

A Bluetooth wireless remote shutter release originally targeted at Fujifilm mirrorless cameras. furble now supports:

• Fujifilm
• Canon
• Nikon
• Sony

The remote uses the camera's native Bluetooth Low Energy interface thus additional adapters are not required.

furble is developed on ESP32 devices as a PlatformIO project.

M5StickC Plus2 (Dark theme)

M5Core2 (Default theme)

Supported Cameras

The following devices have been tested and confirmed to work:

• Fujifilm
  • Fujifilm GFX100 II (@matthudsonau)
  • Fujifilm GFX100RF (@GFXUser101)
  • Fujifilm GFX100S (@adrianuseless)
  • Fujifilm GFX100S II (@GFXUser101)
  • Fujifilm GFX50S II (@TomaszLojewski)
  • Fujifilm X-E4 (@Rediwed)
  • Fujifilm X-E5 (@daniel-ch73)
  • Fujifilm X-H1
  • Fujifilm X-H2S (@val123456)
  • Fujifilm X-S10 (@dimitrij2k)
  • Fujifilm X-S20 (@kelvincabaldo07)
  • Fujifilm X-T200 (@Cronkan)
  • Fujifilm X-T3 (@ubuntuproductions)
  • Fujifilm X-T30
  • Fujifilm X-T4 (@TomaszLojewski)
  • Fujifilm X-T5 (@stulevine)
  • Fujifilm X100V
• Canon
  • Canon EOS M6 (@tardisx)
  • Canon EOS R6 Mark II (@hijae)
  • Canon EOS RP (@wolcano)
  • Canon PowerShot G9 X Mark II (@Mich2e)
• Nikon
  • Nikon COOLPIX B600
  • Nikon Z6 III (@herrfrei)
• Sony
  • Sony ZV-1F

Table of Features

| Camera | Scanning | Pairing | Shutter Release | Focus | GPS | | :---: | :---: | :---: | :---: | :---: | :---: | | Fujifilm X & GFX | ✔️ | ✔️ | ✔️ | ✔️[^1] | ✔️ | | Canon EOS (Remote) | ✔️ | ✔️ | ✔️ | ✔️ | :x:[^2] | | Canon EOS (Smart) | ✔️ | ✔️ | ✔️ | :x:[^2] | ✔️ | | Nikon (Remote) | ✔️ | ✔️ | ✔️ | :x:[^2] | :x:[^2] | | Nikon (Smart) | ✔️ | :x: | :x: | :x: | :x: | | Sony ZV | ✔️ | ✔️ | ✔️ | ✔️ | ✔️ |

[^1]: see #99 [^2]: Non-existent

Supported Controllers

Initially targeted at the M5StickC, the following controllers from M5Stack are supported:

• M5StickC (EOL)
• M5StickC Plus
• M5StickC Plus2
• M5Core Basic
• M5Core2

Installation

Easy Install

The simplest way to get started is with the web installer. Follow the instructions on the wiki: Easy Web Install

PlatformIO

PlatformIO does everything assuming things are installed and connected properly. In most cases it should be:

• clone the repository
• plug in the M5StickC
  • platformio run -e m5stick-c -t upload
• OR plug in M5StickC Plus/Plus2
  • platformio run -e m5stick-c-plus -t upload
• OR plug in the M5Stack Core2
  • platformio run -e m5stack-core2 -t upload

More details are on the wiki: PlatformIO

Usage

The top level menu has the following entries:

• Connect
• Scan
• Delete
• Settings
• Off

On first use, put the target camera into pairing mode, then hit Scan. If the camera advertises a known, matching signature, it should appear in the list. You can then connect to the target camera, which, if successful, will save the entry and show the remote menu.

furble will identify as furble-xxxx where xxxx is a consistent identifier enabling one to differentiate mutiple controllers.

Upon subsequent use it should be enough to hit Connect, selecting the previously paired device and leading to the remote menu.

From the remote menu you may choose to disconnect, control the shutter or activate the intervalometer.

More details are on the wiki: Usage Guide

GPS Location Tagging

For Fujifilm & Sony cameras, location tagging is supported with the M5Stack GPS unit:

• GPS/BDS Unit v1.1 (AT6668)

The previous unit is now EOL:

• Mini GPS/BDS Unit

GPS support can be enabled in furble in Settings->GPS, the camera must also be configured to request location data.

The default baud rate for the GPS unit is 9600. The new v1.1 unit runs at a higher baud rate and must be configured under Settings->GPS->GPS baud 115200 for correct operation.

Intervalometer/Timer

The intervalometer can be configured via three settings in Settings->Intervalometer:

• Count (number of images to take)
• Delay (time between images)
• Shutter (time to keep shutter open)

Count can be configured up to 999 or infinite. Delay and shutter time can be figured with custom or preset values from 0 to 999 in milliseconds, seconds or minutes.

Shutter Lock

When in Shutter remote control, holding focus (button B) then release (button A) will engage shutter lock, holding the shutter open until a button is pressed.

Themes

A few basic themes are included, to change:

• Settings->Themes-><desired theme>
  • hit 'Restart' to save and restart for the theme to take effect
  • better dynamic theme change support is improving in upstream LVGL

Motivation

I found current smartphone apps for basic wireless remote shutter control to be generally terrible. Research revealed the main alternative was attaching a dongle to the camera, of which there were many options varying in price and quality. I really just wanted the Canon BR-E1, but for my camera.

Possibly Supported Cameras

Fujifilm

Given reports from the community and access to additional cameras, it seems many (all?) Fujifilm cameras use the same Bluetooth protocol. Reports of further confirmed working Fujifilm cameras are welcome.

Canon

With access to a Canon EOS M6, I was able to implement support for it. Other Canon cameras might work, but I suspect the shutter control protocol will be different. @wolcano kindly implemented initial support for the Canon EOS RP. @hijae kindly helped with better Canon EOS R support.

Nikon

Nikon cameras that support the remote wireless controller (ML-L7) should work, use the "Connection to remote" menu option. This has been tested on a Nikon COOLPIX B600. Unfortunately, the remote wireless mode has no support for GPS or focus functions, thus only shutter release works. Note that other Nikon cameras will appear in the scan, but will not pair (further support is under investigation). @herrfrei kindly assisted with Z6 III support.

Sony

Sony cameras appear to use a reasonably uniform and robust bluetooth control protocol. Most modern Sony cameras should be supported. Testing was performed on Sony ZV-1F.

To pair with a Sony camera (some models may have different menu options, the following matches the ZV-1F):

• set 'Bluetooth Rmt Ctrl' to 'On'
• set 'Bluetooth Function' 'On'
• under Bluetooth, start 'Pairing'
• start 'Scan' with `furble'
  • due to an oddity with the Bluetooth library, if furble 'Scan' is started first, the Sony camera may not appear

Protocol Reverse Engineering

Android supports snooping bluetooth traffic so it was trivial to grab a HCI log to see what the manufacturer supplied camera app was doing.

For all supported cameras, a snoop log of:

• scanning
• pairing
• re-pairing
• shutter release

was analysed with Wireshark.

It was then an experiment in reducing the interaction to the bare minimum just to trigger the shutter release.

Supporting More Cameras

The best way is to repeat the previous steps, analyse the bluetooth HCI snoop log with Wireshark, implement, then test against the actual device.

Background Story

Requirements

Hardware

I wanted a complete solution out of the box to have:

• bluetooth low energy
• physical button
• visual indicator (LED or display)
• battery
• case
• low cost

My search concluded with the M5StickC from M5Stack. The M5StickC and M5StickC Plus have since been EOL and replaced with the M5StickC Plus2.

The M5StickC is an ESP32 based mini-IoT development kit which covered all of the requirements (and more). At time of writing, M5Stack sell the M5StickC for US$9.95. The M5StickC Plus(2) sells for US$19.95.

Software

The project is built with PlatformIO and depends on the following libraries:

• esp-nimble-cpp
• LVGL
• M5Unified
• TinyGPSPlus

Known Issues

• depending on your perspective, battery life is anywhere from reasonable to bad
  • with an active BLE connection and power management, the