Input from hardware keyboard in Cordova (using Angular & Ionic)

I have some hardware sending input to my app, either by Bluetooth or wired hardware keyboard. At the moment I have a text field taking the input. I need the field to auto-focus when the screen loads, but without haivng the soft keyboard popup on focus.

I've tried autofocus attribute for HTML, but it messes with the view when I'm using Ionic.

I also tried using an angular directive, to focus after 500ms.

.directive('focus', function($timeout, $parse, $cordovaKeyboard) {
  return {
    restrict: 'A',
    link: function(scope, element, attrs) {
      $timeout(function() {
        element[0].focus(); 
      }, 500);
    }
  }
})

Is there a way of focusing without the soft keyboard displaying in both iOS and Android? I need the soft keyboard to popup only when the user clicks on the input field manually.

The other option would be to have a listener for any hardware keyboard inputs - but I can't see any way to do this in Cordova.