2  Bluefly Vario

The Bluefly is a vario that connects via Bluetooth. I’ve got the BlueFlyVario with Bluetooth & GPS v22. We ordered two on 2022-05-12 for 348 AUD (~240 USD) and received them 2022-05-29.

2.1 Overview

  • Weight: 48 g

  • Dimensions: 58 x 36 x 16 mm

  • Battery: ~8 hours (w/ Bluetooth & electromagnetic transducer running). 2-3 hours to fully charge. Observation: A five-hour (sic!) flight took it from 100% down to 46% (3.828V; 3 beeps)

  • Power button: click to turn ON, long press to turn OFF

  • Power button when already ON: short press toggles audio ON, BUZZER, and OFF. This is easy to press during a flight.

  • Battery status (during startup):

    1. First beep is a 1.0s beep at 4000 Hz
    2. Followed by 1-6 “battery” beeps (indicating 3.6-4.2 V)
    3. Followed by a short 0.2s beep at 4000 Hz

  • LED lights:

    • BLUE (Bluetooth):
      • Flash every second => Bluetooth scanning
      • Double flash every second => connected
      • Solid => Bluetooth module is disabled (settings SecondsBluetoothWait). Fix by restarting vario
    • ORANGE (GPS):
      • 1.0s flashing => GPS 3D fix
      • off => no GPS fix
    • GREEN:
      • During startup
      • When pressing button
      • When lift beep sounds (setting GreenLED)
    • RED:
      • Charging (turns off if full charged, but may stays on for trickle charging)

  • Track logs:

    • Capacity: ~60 hours at one-second intervals
    • Always on: when GPS has 3D fix (ORANGE flash)

3 Settings

You can view the Bluefly settings via the BlueFlyVario Android app (download APK, source code). The app can be installed on Poke 3 (Android 10). Unfortunately, you cannot update the settings using this app. If you try, the app (v1.0) will crash when it tries to send the settings to Bluefly, and if you restart the app you will find that your changes were never applied.

To also change settings, use the BFV Desktop Java Application (download ZIP), which runs on any computer and operating system with Java installed. The downside is that you need a computer and you need to connect the Bluefly device via an USB-B micro cable (same that you charge it with). Unless you bring a computer with you on your flying trips, this means you cannot change the settings during trips.

The Poke 3 does not have a speaker. To make sure that the Bluefly outputs vario sounds during your flight, make sure to change settings to:

  • UseAudioWhenConnected: true (default false)

4 Software

To install and run the BFV Desktop Java Application on Ubuntu Linux, do:

$ wget https://blueflyvario.com/files/BFVDesktop0.87.zip
$ unzip BFVDesktop0.87.zip
$ cd BFVDesktop0.87/

Then you have to run it as admin;

$ sudo java -jar BFVDesktop.jar

If you forget sudo, then you will run it as a non-priviliged user, which will not work. There will be no obvious errors, but the software will not send or receive any data to and from the device.

In the ‘Recieve from Vario’ panel at the top right of the BFVDesktop window, you’ll see a ‘Serial Port’ section. It allows you to connect to your Bluefly via a USB cable. To connect:

  1. Connect your computer with the Bluefly device using a USB cable.

  2. Turn on the Bluefly device.

  3. You should now be able to select ‘ttyUSB0’ 1 and click ‘Connect’.

  1. The serial port is called ‘ttyUSB0’ on my Ubuntu 22.04 Linux desktop. It might be called something different on other computers.↩︎