Chapter 35: Using Wireless Bluetooth Devices

IN THIS CHAPTER

What Bluetooth is all about

Connecting and configuring a Bluetooth adapter

Associating with different Bluetooth devices

Connecting to a Bluetooth-enabled personal area network

Transferring files between two systems using the personal area network

In a nutshell, Bluetooth is a wireless technology that provides wireless communications among computers, printers, mobile phones, tablets, digital cameras, and other electronic devices. You can connect as many as eight devices together with Bluetooth, with one device acting as the master device and up to seven slave devices. (This labyrinth of connected devices is called a piconet; you can have up to two piconets.) For example, you could have a desktop PC, a laptop, a smartphone, digital camera, MP3 player, digital video camera, and headphones all linked wirelessly. They could all share a high-speed Internet connection, share data, and use a single printer.

The World of Bluetooth

Bluetooth is a wireless specification intended to replace the need to use physical cables between devices. Bluetooth, for example, enables you to wirelessly connect keyboards, mice, and printers to your laptop or computer. You also can use Bluetooth to wirelessly connect a mobile phone to your computer or laptop to sync settings, transfer photos or videos, or share contacts. Many other types of Bluetooth devices are available as well, including ones that don't even connect to computers or laptops such as devices used inside automobiles, exercise equipment, and games.

Bluetooth uses radio waves to transmit signals, much like many other types of technologies such as FM radio, television, and Wi-Fi. One primary difference between Bluetooth and other radio wave technologies is the distance between devices. Bluetooth is designed for very small distances; the idea is that Bluetooth is personal. You set up connections between your devices in a personal area network (called a PAN). Bluetooth is good within about 164 feet (50 meters), whereas other radio wave technologies can reach miles or hundreds of miles.

At the time of this writing, the current Bluetooth version is 4.0. Bluetooth 4.0 introduced low-energy wireless transfers to allow small, low-powered devices to use Bluetooth. Transfer rates allow data to be sent at up to 25 Mbps (megabytes per second, which is quite fast. If you're thinking of setting up a permanent wireless network between computers, however, you may want to stick with the 802.11 standards described in Chapter 38. But when it comes to connecting non-computer Bluetooth devices, wirelessly connecting a printer, or occasionally transferring files between computers, Bluetooth can't be beat.

The following are some Bluetooth buzzwords and concepts that you'll encounter in this section, as well as in the instructions that come with Bluetooth devices:

• Discovery: A Bluetooth device finds other Bluetooth devices to which it can connect through a process called discovery. To prevent Bluetooth devices from connecting at random, discovery is usually turned off by default on a Bluetooth device. You manually turn on discovery when you're ready for that device to be discovered. After a device has been discovered, you can turn discovery off.
• Discoverable: A discoverable (or visible) Bluetooth device is one that has discovery turned on, so other Bluetooth devices within range can see and connect to the device.
• Pairing: Once two or more Bluetooth devices have discovered one another and have been paired (connected), you can turn off their discovery features. The devices will forever be able to connect to one another, and unauthorized foreign devices will not be able to discover and hack into the paired devices.
• Encryption: A process by which transferred data is encoded to make it unreadable to any unauthorized device that picks up a signal from the device. Bluetooth offers powerful 128-bit data encryption to secure the content of all transferred data.
• Passkey: Similar to a password, only devices that share a passkey can communicate with one another. This is yet another means of preventing unauthorized access to data transmitted across Bluetooth radio waves.
• Bluejacking: A process by which one user sends a picture or message to an unsuspecting person's Bluetooth device.

A non-computer gadget such as a smartphone, MP3 player, or electronic pedometer that supports Bluetooth is called a Bluetooth device. A standard desktop PC or laptop computer usually isn't a Bluetooth device, although many laptops do include built-in Bluetooth capabilities. As a rule, it's easy to turn your PC or laptop into a Bluetooth device. You just plug a Bluetooth USB adapter — a tiny device about the size of your thumb — into any available USB port, and presto, your computer is a Bluetooth device. Making your computer into a Bluetooth device doesn't limit it in any way. It just extends the capabilities of your computer so that you can do things such as:

• Connect a Bluetooth mouse, keyboard, or other pointing device
• Use the Devices tool in the PC Settings area to add a Bluetooth device
• Use the Add Printer Wizard to use a Bluetooth printer wirelessly
• Use a Bluetooth-enabled phone or dial-up device as a modem
• Transfer files between Bluetooth-ready computers or devices by using Bluetooth
• Join an ad hoc PAN of Bluetooth-connected devices (an ad hoc network is an informal network, where devices connect and disconnect on an as-needed basis, without the need for a central hub or base station)

When you install a Bluetooth adapter on your PC or laptop, you also install radio drivers. Windows 8.1 comes with many radio drivers preinstalled.

Configuring Your Bluetooth Adapter

If you plan to share a single Internet account among several computers or Bluetooth devices, you should install your first Bluetooth USB adapter in the computer that connects directly to the router. That will give other Bluetooth devices that you add later easy access to the Internet through that computer's Internet connection.

After you've installed a Bluetooth adapter, you'll find a new icon named Bluetooth 2.0 USB Device (or similar) in the PC Settings Devices list. You also can view Bluetooth information in the Device Manager.

To view the Devices list, show the Charms Bar, choose Settings, click Change PC Settings at the bottom of the PC Settings pane, and click PC and Devices. Figure 35.1 shows the Bluetooth menu option that appears in PC Settings when a Bluetooth device is attached or built-in to the computer.

To see how the same device looks in Device Manager, show the desktop and press Windows+X. Choose Device Manager and expand the Bluetooth list, as shown in Figure 35.2. Your list may be different from the one shown here, but the important thing to note is that you can view and manage the Bluetooth device here as well.

You also will have a Bluetooth icon (which looks very similar to the letter B) in the notification area of the Windows desktop taskbar. The Bluetooth Settings screen will be your central point for installing Bluetooth. To open that screen, use the earlier procedure from the Charms Bar, or double-click the Bluetooth Devices notification area icon (see Figure 35.3). Initially, the Devices list will be empty. If you don't see a Bluetooth Devices icon in your notification area, make sure to select the Show the Bluetooth Icon in the Notification Area check box.

As you install devices and join devices to a Bluetooth PAN, you'll see the names of those devices listed on that screen.

The shortcut icon that appears when you right-click the notification area provides options for adding a Bluetooth device, sending and receiving files, and joining a PAN.

Adding Bluetooth-Enabled Devices

Many different types of Bluetooth devices are available on the market. Most have some means of making the device discoverable (visible) to other devices. Whether you have to make your PC discoverable to install a device depends on the type of installation you're about to perform. As always, you need to read the documentation that came with your device for specifics.

On the shortcut menu for the Bluetooth Devices notification icon, clicking the Add a Bluetooth Device option opens the PC Settings window with the Devices option showing. Windows attempts to locate any devices available. The sections that follow show you how easy it is to connect Bluetooth devices to your laptop or computer. This example shows you how to set up a smartphone to your computer. We then walk you through the process of transferring files to and from that device.

Connecting a smartphone

To add a smartphone to your computer using Bluetooth, you must have a device that supports Bluetooth. Also, your computer or laptop must have built-in Bluetooth or a Bluetooth adapter plugged into it.

Use the following steps to connect the device to your Windows computer:

1. On the Windows 8.1 desktop, click the Bluetooth icon on the notification bar.
2. Click Add a Bluetooth Device, as shown in Figure 35.4. The Devices screen appears.

   

3. Turn on the Bluetooth feature on the device. In the example shown, we're going to add an iPhone. How you do that depends on your version of device and the model of phone. The device listed uses the Settings menu in the iPhone. From here, you can turn on the Bluetooth feature and then use the Bluetooth settings item to make the phone discoverable. Windows searches for all Bluetooth devices that are nearby, including the phone.
4. When the computer and phone find each other, a window similar to the one shown in Figure 35.5 appears. Click the item you want to connect with in Windows.

   

5. A message appears on both your phone and in Windows. A passcode should appear that is identical on both devices. If they are, click Yes on your phone and in Windows to set up the Bluetooth connection. Figure 35.6 shows an example of a passcode that appears during this transaction.

   

Windows sets up a connection between the two devices.

Joining a personal area network

Once your two devices are connected, you can join them as a PAN so you can transfer files between them using the Bluetooth connection. To do so, follow these steps:

1. Click the Bluetooth icon on the desktop notification bar.
2. Click the Join a Personal Area Network option, as shown in Figure 35.7. The Devices and Printers window appears (see Figure 35.8).

   

   

3. Click the device you want to join to the PAN, which in our case is a printer.
4. Click Connect Using – Access Point. Once connected to the PAN, the command choices change to Disconnect from Device Network. Your device will say something like Connected to PAN or similar.

Now that your devices are joined to a PAN, you can transfer files between the two, print to a Bluetooth printer and so on. Read the following two sections to find out how to do this.

Receiving files from a Bluetooth device

There's not much you can do when you connect a smartphone to a computer via Bluetooth. One feature that is handy, however, is the feature to send files from your phone to Windows. You can, for example, send picture or video files from your phone to your computer. To do this, follow these steps:

1. Click the Bluetooth icon on the desktop notification bar.
2. Click Receive a File, as shown in Figure 35.9. The Bluetooth File Transfer window appears (see Figure 35.10). Windows 8.1 now waits until files from your phone begin transmitting to your computer.

   

   

3. On your phone, locate the feature that enables you to send files to a remote location or a media-sharing app. Some Android-based phones include an app called Media Share. With this app, you can share media files (pictures, videos, and audio) with devices on a Bluetooth connection.
4. On your phone, select the file you want to transfer to Windows and transfer it.
5. In Windows, the Bluetooth File Transfer window shows device information, file information, and progress of the file transfer. Figure 35.11 shows an example. In Figure 35.12, the transfer is finished and you can see the filename and size of file, and browse to the location to which it was saved.

   

   

6. Click Finish when you're finished sharing files from the phone.

Sending files to a Bluetooth device

Not only does Windows 8.1 make it easy to receive files from a Bluetooth device, such as an Android-based smartphone, but it also makes it easy to send files to a device:

1. Click the Bluetooth icon on the desktop notification bar.
2. Click Send a File. You can see this option in Figure 35.9 earlier in this chapter.
3. Select the Bluetooth device to which you want to send the file. In the example shown in Figure 35.13, our choice is the DROID2 GLOBAL device. In some cases, you may have multiple devices showing, so be sure to choose the correct one.

   

4. Click Next.
5. Specify the path and name of the file you want to share, as shown in Figure 35.14. Use the Browse button to locate the file(s) to send. If you choose multiple files, they're separated by a semicolon.

   

6. Click Next. The Bluetooth File Transfer window appears showing the progress of the file being sent (see Figure 35.15). Make sure your phone is turned on. You may need to confirm the file transfer on your phone.

   

Windows sends the file(s) from your computer to your phone. Depending on the size of the files, the transfer process may take several minutes.

Creating a Bluetooth personal area network

You've seen how to create a PAN to allow a smartphone to connect to your computer. You also can create a Bluetooth PAN as a short-range wireless network to connect other types of devices together wirelessly. A PAN is commonly used to connect a laptop to a desktop PC, although it can be used to connect other types of Bluetooth devices. As a rule, there's not much to joining Bluetooth devices to a Bluetooth network. Most of the action takes place automatically behind the scenes.

To explain the basic procedure, let's assume you already have a desktop computer with a functional Internet connection. You've already installed a Bluetooth USB adapter on that computer, so it's now a Bluetooth device. On that desktop computer, click the Bluetooth adapter icon in the notification area of the Windows desktop. Click Open Settings and make sure Allow Bluetooth Devices to Find This Computer is selected, as shown in Figure 35.16.

On a laptop computer (or second computer), activate Bluetooth or, if necessary, plug in a second Bluetooth USB adapter. You want to connect the laptop to the desktop in a PAN. To do so, starting from the laptop computer, follow these steps:

1. Right-click the Bluetooth Devices notification area icon and choose Join a Personal Area Network. A list of Bluetooth devices should appear. If at least one device does not appear, click the Add a Bluetooth Device button and follow the steps to locate a Bluetooth-enabled computer. When the search completes, you should see a list of all of the available devices.
2. Click the name of the computer to which you want to connect, and click the Next button.
3. Choose a passkey method from the next wizard screen (the Choose a Passkey for Me option is sufficient), and then click Next.
4. You'll be given a passkey. On the other computer, you'll be asked to type in that same passkey. Type in the passkey exactly as shown in the first computer and click Next.
5. Follow any remaining instructions in the wizards on both computers until you get to the final page, and then click the Close button in each wizard.

Once the connection is established, you should have Internet access on both computers. You can share printers and folders, and move and copy files between computers using the techniques described in Chapter 21 and Chapter 25.

Note, however, that if you made the Bluetooth connection to only one computer in an existing local area network (LAN), you'll have access only to the shared resources on the Bluetooth-enabled computer, not all the computers in the LAN.

Troubleshooting a Bluetooth network connection

If you can't get any connectivity at all using Bluetooth, try the following remedy:

1. Go to the computer that's having trouble connecting to the PAN.
2. Open the Network and Sharing Center by pressing Windows+X and choosing Control Panel ⇒ Network and Internet ⇒ Network and Sharing Center.
3. Scroll down to the Bluetooth Network Connection group. If you're unable to locate the Bluetooth Network Connection group, you'll need to follow the steps outlined earlier, including entering a passkey from the other system in the PAN.

By the time you complete the wizards on both screens, you should have a connection. The Network and Sharing Center folders on each PC should have similar Bluetooth network entries.

Sharing an Internet connection

If you're unable to get Internet connectivity from the computer you're connecting to the PAN that already has Internet connectivity, go to the computer that's connected to the cable modem or router. Open the Network and Sharing Center and click the network item next to the Connections label. In the Activity area, click Properties and select the Sharing tab. Choose Allow Other Network Users to Connect through This Computer's Internet Connection and click OK twice to save your settings.

If you still have problems connecting to the Internet, check the settings for the Windows Firewall. Display the Charms Bar, choose Search, type fire, and then click Windows Firewall in the results area. Double-click a rule from the inbound or outbound rules list to adjust the settings.

With these settings, you should now be able to connect to the Internet from the other computers in the PAN.

Remember that many different Bluetooth devices are available on the market. If none of the techniques described here help you make the connection between two computers in a PAN, be sure to refer to the instructions that came with your Bluetooth device.

Wrap-Up

This chapter has been about installing and configuring Bluetooth devices and Bluetooth networks. Bluetooth devices provide an excellent alternative to many commonly wired devices. Also, they're usually fast and easy to set up and can provide a great way for users to communicate between computers without having to rely on more complex networking. Here's a recap of the technologies covered in this chapter:

• Bluetooth is currently at version 4.0 and allows you to connect smartphones, mice, keyboards, exercise equipment, and other Bluetooth devices.
• To turn a computer into a Bluetooth device, simply connect a Bluetooth USB adapter to a USB port on the computer.
• To connect a Bluetooth device to a computer, activate discovery on the device, bring it within range of the computer, click the Bluetooth Devices icon in the notification area, and choose Add a Device.
• To create a PAN between two or more computers, add a Bluetooth USB adapter to each computer, or use the built-in Bluetooth if applicable. Then click the Bluetooth Devices notification area icon and choose Join a Personal Area Network.
• Regardless of what type of device you intend to connect to your computer, always read the instructions that came with the device first.