Bluetooth dongles

[time]

Apparently, Bluetooth dongles don't necessarily play nice with Windows 7. I think the blame lies mainly with Microsoft, but I'm amazed how few devices actually have a Windows 7 64-bit driver.

I noticed this because someone had weird BSOD problems on their PC, which turned out to be due to the driver for the generic Bluetooth dongle. It's to sync with a Palm.

Anyone have some success stories with something other than mouse or audio?

 

[ddrueding]

I used to use the Linksys Bluetooth dongle with some stuff, but Bluetooth itself just isn't reliable enough for connections. Went back to the Logitech proprietary for key/mouse and wired for everything else.

 

[CougTek]

75$ for a Bluetooth dongle??? Come on! No Bluetooth adapter should cost more than 20$. This is a rip off.

 

[ddrueding]

The range on that thing is exceptional, at least 150' for my headset and 200'+ for my Logitech diNovo Edge. Through walls.

 

[time]

So no-one uses Bluetooth with anything other than mouse/keyboard or audio?

 

[Mercutio]

Honestly, I don't any more. I have a headset I use with my phone as infrequently as possible and that's about it.

The bluetooth experience on Windows is just too damned inconsistent.

 

[Howell]

I don't use bluetooth at all even though it is built into my laptop. I have a dongle left over from when I was syncing with an old phone but based on your experiences I would want to take a backup before testing for you and there is not guarantee there is a 64 bit driver available. Maybe on the weekend.

 

[Sol]

I think my mother used to use bluetooth to sync her Palm before she got an iPhone. That was on 32bit Vista though and using the built in bluetooth on her laptop, I think she mostly used usb though because it was just easier. I only have one Windows PC (64Bit 7) and the bluetooth is part of the motherboard (An Asus P67 Pro) it works fine with the drivers from the dvd for connecting to a keyboard, PS3 and Wii controllers, or my phone but I have an Android phone so it syncs to the cloud not a PC and my old Palm device doesn't have bluetooth.

 

[Handruin]

The only bluetooth I use is between my iphone and my car for the hands-free talking.

 

[sechs]

I have a dongle that I use to pull the pictures off of my dumbphone... because I can't find the data cables. The vast majority of the time, it is unplugged, however.