IdleTimeout behavior for fake-HID device in Bluez 5?

IdleTimeout behavior for fake-HID device in Bluez 5?

[Mark A. Haun]

I've successfully attached a PS3 bluetooth remote to a Debian Jessie
system running bluez 5.23.  In bluetoothctl it appears as

Device 00:21:4F:48:D1:D2
        Name: BD Remote Control
        Alias: BD Remote Control
        Class: 0x00250c
        Paired: no
        Trusted: yes
        Blocked: no
        Connected: yes
        LegacyPairing: no
        UUID: Human Interface Device... (00001124-0000-1000-8000-00805f9b34fb)
        UUID: PnP Information           (00001200-0000-1000-8000-00805f9b34fb)
        Modalias: usb:v054Cp0306d0100

(Note that it is not paired.  From what I can tell based on outdated
how-tos, this is the normal, operational state, even though everyone
refers to the setup process as "pairing."  See e.g.
https://www.mythtv.org/wiki/Sony_PS3_BD_Remote)

Upon first connection, an input device is created:

[87044.559923] input: BD Remote Control as /devices/soc0/7d004000.usb/usb1/1-1/1-1:1.0/bluetooth/hci0/hci0:256/0005:054C:0306.0005/input/input7
[87044.573409] sony 0005:054C:0306.0005: input,hidraw1: BLUETOOTH HID v1.00 Gamepad [BD Remote Control] on ac:fd:ce:76:f2:4a

and I can watch keypresses using evemu-record.

I have set IdleTimeout=1 in /etc/bluetooth/input.conf.  There is scant
documentation but my understanding is that this should disconnect from the
remote after one minute of inactivity.  What I find, however, is that after
exactly one minute, the *input device* disappears (i.e. no longer listed
in /proc/bus/input/devices) but the connection to the remote remains
active.  Ten or twenty minutes later, it still shows as "Connected" in
bluetoothctl or hcitool con:

Connections:
        > ACL 00:21:4F:48:D1:D2 handle 256 state 1 lm MASTER 

Pressing buttons on the remote at this stage does not bring back the input
device, although hciconfig shows that packets are being received.  If I
forcibly disconnect (hcitool dc 00:21:4F:48:D1:D2), and then press a
button on the remote, the connection is automatically re-established,
along with the input device, and input events are available until the
next timeout.

Automatic disconnect is important due to limited battery life in the
remote.  How can I achieve this?  My recollection is that this worked in
older bluez releases (pre-5).  For a long time there were patches floating
around, but I thought those found their way back to the mainline.