MSI Bluetooth USB Dongle

For a number of years now, if you wanted to connect a GPS Receiver to a laptop or a PC, you would have to use a Serial or USB type GPS Mouse. These come with a cable tethering it to your laptop and although they work extremely well, they are not the best solution for in-car use, especially having cables trailing over the dashboard when you are driving!

In the past year we have seen not only Bluetooth take off in a very big way, but in the past 6 months a flurry of new Bluetooth USB Dongles being brought to market. These Bluetooth USB Adapters are a little plug (or dongle) that plugs into your USB port and with added drivers and software allow you to run Bluetooth on a Windows based PC and connect wirelessly to a Bluetooth GPS.

This review concentrates on the MSI Bluetooth dongle (BToers) which is a tried and tested Bluetooth adapter and works well with all Bluetooth GPS Receivers we have tested it with on Laptop, Notebook and Tablet PC's that have a spare USB port.

In The Box
When you open up the box you will find the very small USB plug, with a plastic cap on so you can protect the USB plug when you take it away with you, and also a lanyard chord so if you want to be hip and cool, you can hang the Bluetooth Adapter from your neck.

Installation

Select the MSI Bluetooth Software option, and follow on-screen prompts. When completed and are then requested to insert the Bluetooth Dongle, Windows XP will then install the driver reading it from the CD Rom.

Configuration

To setup and connect to the Bluetooth GPS you need to power on your Bluetooth GPS Receiver, then create a new service, select Bluetooth Serial Port and follow on-screen prompts.
You should then see another screen like the one below, change the devices to Show All Devices and click REFRESH and you should then see a Bluetooth GPS like the EMTAC which is the one we're testing this dongle with.

Once you click NEXT and follow on-screen prompts, you should then see this appear in the Bluetooth Places.


If you right click the Emtac BT GPS icon and click CONNECT you will see a dialog box like this one.


Once connected you will then be able to create a Bluetooth bond using the correct passkey that the BT GPS uses. The one we tested here was the Emtac/Socket BT GPS which uses a passkey of 0183.


That's it, it's as simple as that!

All you need to do is open up your GPS software and connect on the COM port it has bound to (which can be changed later) and you should start receiving a GPS signal (providing you are outside!).

If you want to assign a different COM port, perhaps a lower or high one that what was selected, in the Bluetooth Places you right click the icon for the Bluetooth GPS, click PROPERTIES and change the COM port. Then click APPLY, OK and you're done!