Would you like to see who is calling your mobile on your PC? Are you in an environment where your phone has to be silent? Do you miss calls?

This walk through will show you how to connect your Symbian Smart-phone to your Windows XP PC via Bluetooth. This is likely to work for most Bluetooth phones and all operating systems that support Bluetooth though the method will be slightly different on other platforms.

There are heaps of fun and interesting things you can do with Bluetooth. Check out some of my other How-To’s and have a play.

Bluetooth has many services which you can use. For this How-to I am only going to focus on the hands-free service, although part of this process is the pairing of the devices. Each Bluetooth device offers only a few services but all smart-phones I have seen offer the hands-free service.

Not all bluetooth adaptors will allow for the use of the hands-free service. It works with my Belkin adaptor but it has not been possible on some laptops I have come across. To find out if your PC is capable, open up “My computer”, click “My Bluetooth Places”, click “View my Bluetooth Services”. Look for Hands-free or Headset profile and you should be alright. This may also be dependent on your drivers.

One of the drawbacks with Bluetooth is that it drains the battery of your device whilst it is switched on. My batteries lose power twice as fast with it on and connected to another device. This is slightly annoying but if you are willing to charge your phone ever 1-2 days, you will be fine. You probably have these features, so you may as well see if you can use them.

What you need:

• Symbian Bluetooth handset.
  • I will be using a Nokia N70 running Symbian 8.1
• PC/Laptop running Windows XP
  • Up to date, Service Pack 2 is probably required
• Bluetooth built-in to your laptop or a Bluetooth USB Adaptor.
  • These are available in most IT shops and range in price greatly. I use a Belkin Bluetooth USB Adaptor - Model F8T013 I bought at Harvey Norman. No name brand adaptors can be found at local computer shops for around $20, though I have no idea if these will offer the hands-free service.

I am assuming drivers have been installed on the computer for the Bluetooth ready PC or Laptop.

Pairing the Smart-phone with your Computer.

In order to use the headset service we first need to pair the Smart-phone with your computer. This enables the Bluetooth communication between the two devices.

On your Symbian Smart-phone, tap on the following buttons

Press the Menu Button

Press “Connect”

Press “Bluetooth”

Ensure that Bluetooth is turned on.
It is important to have visibility “Shown to all” during the pairing process.

Press to the right to see paired devices. The list is likely to come up blank.

Press “Select” and “New paired device”
After a few moments you will be shown the Devices Found. Highlight your PC and

Press “Select”

Your Smart-phone will now ask you to enter a passkey. This is a code that you put in to allow for a secure connection between your Smart-phone and your computer. You make this key up in most cases and if you do forget it in the future, you can re-pair the devices. They are usually 4 characters long and numeric. I usually use 1234 or 9876. I don’t see there being huge security issues here but if you have sensitive data on your Smart-phone you may want to look into Bluetooth security.

Enter your passkey, e.g. 1234 or 2435
And then press “OK”

Your PC will request the Passkey. Click on the bubble pop-up

Enter your Passkey and Press OK

You should see that your connection is successful. Icon will change to aqua.

Select “Yes”. You can control this easily by turning Bluetooth on and off if “Yes” is selected.

You should now see your PC in the Paired devices screen.

Setting your Computer as the Hands-free device

In the options menu, select “connect” and after a few moments your PC will work as your headset.

If all has gone to plan you will now be able to accept calls to your mobile through your PC. When the mobile is dialled a pop-up will appear down the bottom right of the screen offering you the number

Not only that, if you click on the bubble you will be given the option to Accept or Reject the call.

If you connect your computer to a microphone and headphones you can have your conversation using your computer whilst your phone is in another room. There is a whole world of things that can be done using the hands-free service. Using your PC to record phone calls is easy to achieve and sometimes useful.

Your smart-phone should reconnect automatically when you are near the computer, my computer reconnects with my phones automatically saving me from having to manually set hands free.

I hope that you have found this How-to useful and that you will check out some of my other How-to’s at Inspect My Gadget.