Reading from bluetooth serial doesn't always read the byte

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1

I have a SoftwareSerial interface set up with an HC-06 bluetooth module to read a byte similar to a serial monitor. The problem I am having is since I am using it to control a LED strip, the FastLED.show() function messes with the BT.read() function.

if (BT.available() > 0) {
ch = BT.read();
Serial.print("I received: ");
Serial.println(ch);
} else {
FastLED.show();
FastLED.delay(1000 / UPDATES_PER_SECOND);
}

I have tried reading from the serial monitor instead and it works just fine. I am wondering if this is a problem with the HC-06 or the softwareSerial library. The baud rate of the device is 9600 so that shouldn't be the problem.

2

Why is the call to FastLED.show conditional on serial data being not available?

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