This is one of the several posts I’ve made since I obtained the Nokia e71x phone. As you know, connecting the Nokia E71x phone to your computer via USB is a piece of cake. Pairing the Nokia E71x via bluetooth to your computer is also very easy.
However, due to reasons I’ll expatiate on in this post, installing the correct bluetooth drivers for the E71x phone was a headache. If the services offered by your computer and phone look like this image below, the chances are you don’t have anything to worry about:
For proper context, my laptop was running the default bluetooth drivers. HP will not be officially supporting my laptop’s model (dv9700t CTO) for upgrades to Windows 7 and as you may know, I’ve been running Windows 7 since late October 2009. So, if you purchased a laptop recently with Windows 7 already on it, you may not have run into this issue where Windows is unable to install drivers for the Bluetooth peripheral device when you first connect your Nokia E71x phone to your PC. Please note that despite Windows throwing up the driver installation failures, I was able to use all the functions of Ovi suite software with the phone. So for all intents and purposes, getting the extra bluetooth profiles to work as they should for the E71x on your computer may just be icing on the cake. Basically, all I did was install updated drivers for my bluetooth device from HP.com. I installed the DriverCure program and it was able to let me know exactly what driver version I was looking for. Through a process of trial and error, I was able to visit HP’s website and type in new laptop model numbers in order to bring up their “Software and Updates” page. Again, driver installation can be tricky so please ensure you have a working backup of all your files (like I did).
My current bluetooth driver version is: 6.2.0.9405 and the advantage of installing these latest drivers is the ‘unlocking of the following services in the screenshot below:
- Bluetooth hands-free audio:- This lets you listen to audio stored on your phone through your computer’s speakers!
- Bluetooth L2CAP interface
- Bluetooth remote control
- Bluetooth AV source
- Bluetooth AV Remote control target
- Bluetooth headset AG:- This lets you use your computer’s speakers as the ‘speaker’ for your phone. So you can sit back with your computer headset and just talk into the phone!
- Bluetooth OPP
- Bluetooth FTP:- pretty self explanatory. There’s now an icon under “My Computers” that allows you to browse the files on your phone.
- Bluetooth Imaging Responder
This might not be a big deal to a casual user, but for web workers, these bluetooth profiles are pure gold. š Okay, maybe I’m the only excited, but here’s *the* money shot that I was hoping to unlock by installing the updated bluetooth drivers:
I’m now able to remotely ‘control’ certain functions of my phone like initiating a phone call from my computer and backing up my contacts/appointments through my computer! it comes with obvious risks and you aren’t guaranteed to have the results I’m showing, but it won’t hurt to give it a shot after considering the following caveats:
- You have backed up your computer’s data
- You have backed up your phone’s contents
- You accept full responsibility for any data/equipment carnage that may happen.
Cheers!