Bluetooth Low Energy: does laptop brand X support it?

[LigH]

According to Wikipedia, Bluetooth v4.0+ supports a Low Energy variant optionally. How probable is it that a specific laptop will be able to connect with a device known to support BLE? It will probably depend on the chipset of the integrated network card as well as the OS support for Bluetooth LE (built-in in e.g. Windows 8.1 and 10, but not yet Windows 7).

Specific example: Acer Aspire V17 Nitro (VN7-792G) uses – according to available drivers on the support page – Qualcomm Atheros NFA344A (or NFA222 LiteOn) as Bluetooth 4.0 compatible wireless network chipset. Would it work with e.g. a Microsoft Mobile Mouse 3600 (it does run Windows 10)?

A call to the Acer pre-sale support was not really satisfying, this level of question was possibly beyond the knowledge of the staff.

[raffriff42]

https://www.google.com/search?q=Acer+Aspire+V17+Nitro+VN7-792G+specifications
-> https://www.ultrabookreview.com/9680-acer-aspire-v17-review/
-> "Connectivity: Intel Bluetooth 4.0"
-> https://www.google.com/search?q=Intel+Bluetooth+4.0
(guessing on the exact "Intel Bluetooth 4.0" module...I picked the less expensive one)
-> https://www.google.com/search?q=Intel+7260+IEEE+802.11ac
-> https://www.intel.com/content/dam/www/public/us/en/documents/product-briefs/dual-band-wireless-ac-7260-bluetooth-brief.pdf
-> "Dual mode Bluetooth 4.0 connects to low-energy Bluetooth products..."

...note the review site says "Intel 4.0", not the published specs. When your laptop arrives, it may be equipped with something else.

[LigH]

Well, that's why I mentioned the driver identification "Qualcomm Atheros NFA344A (or NFA222 LiteOn)" from the Acer support site. It's not the "Black Edition" as in the review with the Atheros QCA6174. I don't know where you read "intel Bluetooth".

[raffriff42]

You don't? I gave the link.
I googled the model number you gave. So sorry for trying to help.

[LigH]

Ah, now I see the mistake ... the Bluetooth 4.0 specification was written by intel. But the Atheros multi-purpose wireless communication chipset was produced by Qualcomm.

[LigH]

I got my hands on this laptop and took a HWiNFO report. According to this, the device is USB\VID_04CA&PID_3016 (Lite-On Bluetooth USB Module using a Qualcomm Atheros Communications driver, probably shared with a Atheros/Qualcomm QCA6174 802.11ac Wireless Network Adapter).

There is a Bluetooth Low Energy Hid Device (https://devid.info/en/245973/Bluetooth+Low+Energy+Hid+Device) driver pack for Vista64 available which supports a lot of such devices virtually connected to an internal USB port. So chances are good that Windows 10 would support it already without installing this pack, IMHO.

So I am quite confident to buy a BLE mouse and try it. I can send it back in a fortnight if it fails unexpectedly.

[LigH]

Success. Logitech M590 works right away.