Prospector Firmware Alternatives
Use the Prospector as a Dongle Central Device
The prospector is originally designed to be used as a central device. Without a dongle, the left side is usually used as a central device. A central device connects to the computer, and allows peripheral device (such as the right half) to be connected.
When a dongle is used, the dongle works like the original left side device as a central device. And, the left and right side can be connected to the dongle as peripheral devices.
The good thing is, the dongle can be connected to the computer with USB wired mode. It is useful for some people at work where directly connecting bluetooth devices are not allowed. Switching the dongle connection from one computer to another computer is also quicker in some cases. And, a KVM can also be used instead of multiple Bluetooth profiles. The battery life is also better on the left side, because it becomes a peripheral devices.
The left side and the right side connect to the dongle via bluetooth. The left side can no long be connected to the computer directly as a Bluetooth device.
The Prospector Original Firmware
The prospector is a ZMK dongle with a screen, created by carrefinho (https://github.com/carrefinho). The official ZMK module for building your own ZMK firmware can be found at https://github.com/carrefinho/prospector-zmk-module
The original firmware can show useful information. This include the active layer, split keyboard battery level, connection status, and cap word indicator.
With this setup, the prospector dongle is connected to the computer
YADS - Yet another Dongle Screen for ZMK
Another firmware can be found at https://github.com/janpfischer/zmk-dongle-screen . It shows word per minute, current connection status (USB or BLE connection), active, mod status, and battery level.
Another example firmware that use Cornix, and Prospector can be found at https://github.com/bwshockley/zmk-dongle-screen . A reddit post is shared by bwshockley at https://www.reddit.com/r/ErgoMechKeyboards/comments/1ofuiqf/custom_cornix_dongle/ . It is a fork of janpfischer/zmk-dongle-screen with modified elements.
screenshot of https://www.reddit.com/r/ErgoMechKeyboards/comments/1ofuiqf/custom_cornix_dongle/ posted by bwshockley
Use the Prospector as a Prospector Scanner
Another way to use prospector is to use it as a BLE scanner, instead of a ZMK dongle device. As a standalone BLE scanner, it shows information from the ZMK keyboards that advertise their status.
The Prospector Scanner firmware provide an innovative usage of the Prospector. The firmware is created by t-ogura (https://github.com/t-ogura), and the repo can be found at https://github.com/t-ogura/zmk-config-prospector .
As opposed to the original dongle usage, the use of prospector scanner does not require the change of the central device settings. The keyboard still functions as a Bluetooth device, that can be connected to the computer without a dongle. The Prospector shows the active layer, battery status, and other information of ZMK keyboards, without pairing required.
Apart from the firmware, a very cool mod with battery can be found at the post in Japanese by t-ogura at https://note.com/heace/n/n6a5369f44b3b