Making my laptop behave like a phone over bluetooth

May 14, 2009 3:16 PM

I've noticed that mobile phones have a much easier time talking to each other than to most laptops/PCs. Is there any software out there that can make a PC behave like a mobile phone? For some reason I'm expecting mostly open-source, but anything is welcome.
posted by d7415 to computers & internet (12 comments total)

You're going to need to be more specific about what you mean by "talking to each other". Via what method, and for what purpose?
posted by bizwank at 3:18 PM on May 14

Sorry - my mistake. Bluetooth, mostly for sending files.

I've seen phones struggle several times with computers when they will send quite happily to another phone, without any pairing either. It seemed that this could be a good trick to have if it came up again.
posted by d7415 at 3:55 PM on May 14

If the laptops have IR, Windows actually has really good IR support. It's probably the easiest way of transferring files between laptops, excepting of course that you have to point the IR ports at each other.
posted by GuyZero at 4:14 PM on May 14

A lot of modern laptops and computers have Bluetooth built in. Or you can buy Bluetooth USB adapters.
posted by Petrot at 4:19 PM on May 14

"If the laptops have IR, Windows actually has really good IR support"

No modern laptop ships with IR anymore. The best way to achieve this; unfortunately; is still with sneaker-net (usb disk). Even us "super-geeks" do it this way for sake of having to exchange IP's and passwords for some service (ftp, etc). Bluetooth to bluetooth laptop is just a pairing hassle.

Sorry to rain on the parade.
posted by SirStan at 4:28 PM on May 14

Are you talking for file transfer? I've never had a problem sending a file computer to computer via bluetooth, but you could also use Wifi, e-mail (via the internet), a crossover cable.

As for sending files over bluetooth without pairing or being previously paired- thats impossible.
posted by wongcorgi at 4:44 PM on May 14

IR is about 100kb\s tops and BT is about 50. Both are pretty slow ways to send anything.

The USB Stick or HDD is the fastest way for larger files. Smaller files I tend to do a lot of file sharing using the internet now too over email, a chat client, or a sandbox.

Bluetooth is not actually that hard using two PCs or something though. Just use the built in windows support and set the pairing keys to something simple and boom your done. I've never had any problems the few times I've done that. It's very simple even doing mac to pc.
posted by zephyr_words at 4:48 PM on May 14

I imagine you are experiencing the joys of the crippled bluetooth stack on your pc allied with the mobile networks attempts to restrict access the the phones directory strucuture. It's fun, I can unfortunately offer no solution that doesn't involve lots of googling and installing odd dll and inf files.
posted by fistynuts at 5:22 PM on May 14

I've never had more trouble moving stuff between computer and phone via Bluetooth than I have moving stuff between phones. The Bluetooth support that comes built in to Ubuntu worked flawlessly from the first time I plugged my cheap generic Bluetooth dongle into one of the PC's USB ports.
posted by flabdablet at 6:44 PM on May 14

The USB Stick or HDD is the fastest way for larger files. Smaller files I tend to do a lot of file sharing using the internet now too over email, a chat client, or a sandbox.

+1 - why not just email, or AIM the files? (AIM will open a p2p connection if it can, and if it can't it'll switch to using AOL's servers)

I've never used it, but you could try Bonjour. But both computers need to have it installed.
posted by MesoFilter at 9:19 PM on May 14

Sounds like there's no way for what I'm trying for. It also seems I'm awful at wording this.

My intention was to have my (and other) mobile phones send things (e.g. photos) to my laptop as they would to another phone (so no USB, p2p, ftp, etc). OBEX can be an option (it seems better than I remembered actually), but that's still a "pull" and I was looking for a "push" from the phone.

I can't see any reason why this would not be possible, but I suppose it's not a major issue, so nobody has written the drivers to handle it.

Thanks for trying, everyone!
posted by d7415 at 4:00 PM on May 15

My intention was to have my (and other) mobile phones send things (e.g. photos) to my laptop as they would to another phone (so no USB, p2p, ftp, etc).

That's exactly what I can do with my Ubuntu PC. It shows up in the same list of devices as other phones do, and I just send files to it, and they appear on the desktop. No muss, no fuss.
posted by flabdablet at 1:44 AM on May 18