How to Determine If Your PC Has Bluetooth Capability

PCs & Laptops For Dummies

Much like everything else in your computer, Bluetooth functionality requires both hardware and software. Like a camera without film — one won't work without the other. Unfortunately, not all PCs arrive Bluetooth-ready right out of the box, especially older models.

If your PC didn’t come with Bluetooth hardware installed, you can easily add some by purchasing a Bluetooth USB dongle.

Using Device Manager to find Bluetooth hardware

To determine whether your Windows PC has Bluetooth hardware, check Device Manager. Follow these steps:

Open the Windows Start Menu to search for and open the Control Panel.
Choose Hardware and Sound, and then choose Device Manager.

In Windows 10, the Device Manager link can also be found beneath the Devices and Printers heading.
Look for a Bluetooth drop-down menu in the list.

If any items are listed here, your PC has Bluetooth hardware installed, and you can safely assume that the software has been set up as well.
Close the various windows you opened.

Adding a Bluetooth device

Bluetooth software is typically supplied by Windows or whatever installation drive came with the hardware, so you shouldn't have to worry about setting that up too often. To connect to a new Bluetooth device, however, follow these steps:

In Windows 10, go to Settings and then Devices.
Click on Add Bluetooth or other device.
Choose the type of device you want to connect to from the list.
Make sure the device is on a "discoverable" mode. Check the device's manual if you don't know how to do so.
Once discoverable, the device's name should appear on your screen.
Select it and Windows should take care of the rest.
You may now close all windows.

Bluetooth devices are paired, which means that they are assigned to work with only one device at a time.

The wireless networking used by Bluetooth isn’t as robust as Wi-Fi. For the most part, Bluetooth is a low-powered system. You can’t move a Bluetooth gadget more than 10 feet or so from its paired device without losing the signal.

About This Article

About the book author:

Dan Gookin has been writing about technology for 20 years. He has contributed articles to numerous high-tech magazines and written more than 90 books about personal computing technology, many of them accurate.
He combines his love of writing with his interest in technology to create books that are informative and entertaining, but not boring. Having sold more than 14 million titles translated into more than 30 languages, Dan can attest that his method of crafting computer tomes does seem to work.
Perhaps Dan’s most famous title is the original DOS For Dummies, published in 1991. It became the world’s fastest-selling computer book, at one time moving more copies per week than the New York Times number-one best seller (although, because it’s a reference book, it could not be listed on the NYT best seller list). That book spawned the entire line of For Dummies books, which remains a publishing phenomenon to this day.
Dan’s most recent titles include PCs For Dummies, 9th Edition; Buying a Computer For Dummies, 2005 Edition; Troubleshooting Your PC For Dummies; Dan Gookin’s Naked Windows XP; and Dan Gookin’s Naked Office. He publishes a free weekly computer newsletter, “Weekly Wambooli Salad,” and also maintains the vast and helpful Web site www.wambooli.com.