Using my mobile as a bluetooth remote on XP Professional

March 26, 2006 7:46 AM

I'd like to use my mobile as a bluetooth remote control at work but can't install any software

I have to give presentations at work and like to move about a bit when doing them. Rather than have to dash back to the PC to advance the PowerPoint presentation, it would be cool to use my phone (K750i) as a bluetooth remote. Because of standard company IT lock-down, I can't install any software my machine. We run XP Professional. Is there any way I can do this, perhaps just by plugging in a dongle?

posted by TheDonF to computers & internet (7 comments total)

I thought this was indeed possible (I'm pretty sure I've played around with the remote control feature before). I have a k750i and a dongle and will gladly test it for you, but I'm still looking for an appropriate powerpoint file. Bear with me...
posted by ClarissaWAM at 8:42 AM on March 26, 2006

Yes it does indeed work. Took me a while to figure out how though. Make sure you enable the "drivers for keyboard, mice etc" for your phone on your XP bluetooth settings (under services).

(This is of course assuming you are allowed / have admin rights to enable bluetooth on your machine.)
posted by ClarissaWAM at 9:00 AM on March 26, 2006

OOh, sounds promising, although I'm a bit unsure about the rights to enable bluetooth. Is that something that's in Windows that plugging in a bluetooth dongle won't overcome/enable?
posted by TheDonF at 9:08 AM on March 26, 2006

Well I'm not sure... yes Windows does automatically enable Bluetooth when you plug in the dongle (you have to have SP2 though for it to really work), but then it might tell you you have insufficient rights depending on your login setup. Since Bluetooth is considered not terribly secure, I could imagine your IT dept might have disabled it.
posted by ClarissaWAM at 9:55 AM on March 26, 2006

Why not get them to spring for a fifteen dollar Keyspan USB presentation remote? With laser pointer built in?
posted by fixedgear at 12:19 PM on March 26, 2006

Thanks CWAM. I've got a dongle on order so we'll see what happens. Thanks for checking it out - I'm on a Mac at home so can't play with this on a Windows machine.

Hopefully my company's IT department hasn't got as far as thinking about bluetooth yet :)
posted by TheDonF at 12:33 PM on March 26, 2006

fixedgear: lovely suggestion, 'cept that that a large company's IT department really doesn't like paying for one-off things like this. I can see the paperwork now :( Having said that, it's pretty cheap so, if the bluetooth doesn't work, then I'll check that out. Cheers :)
posted by TheDonF at 12:42 PM on March 26, 2006