Everything is Better with Bluetooth

Here is a nice surprise that I discovered yesterday. Those of you who have read my Windows 7 Installation Guide would know that you only need to install the Sony® Firmware Extension Parser Device Driver after installing Windows 7 in order to the get all the hardware working properly. If you want to use the vertical scrolling function of the touchpad, you may choose to install the Alps® Pointing Device Driver as well. It turns out, you may also like to install the Broadcom® Bluetooth® Driver.

First, let's make it clear that the stock Windows 7 bluetooth driver works just fine. I can pair my LG Vu cellphone and my iMac to the Sony VAIO FW490; I can send and receive files without any problem. My only complaint was that I have to right-click on the bluetooth tray icon and hit the "Receive a File" button, every time I plan to receive a file from another device. And since my stupid LG phone can't send multiple files at the same time, that means I have to do the whole right-click-left-click sequence repeatedly.

After installing the Broadcom Driver, I no longer have to right-click on the bluetooth tray icon anymore. When I try to send a file from my cellphone, Windows 7 will popup a dialog prompting me to accept or reject the file. I can even choose to automatically accept files from the device for the next several minutes to hours. I can also browse files located on my cellphone directly.

In addition to file transfer, the Broadcom Driver supports several interesting functions as well. You can make phone call from the Windows 7 Control Panel (not sure why anyone wants to do that). You can stream music from your cellphone to your computer. You can use your laptop's microphone and speaker as a speaker phone. Here is the most important part, you can connect to the internet via your cellphone! Yes, bluetooth tethering works! Again, I am using the LG Vu on the AT&T network with the Unlimited mobile Web service. While the speed is definitely not as good as WiFi, it is certainly more than acceptable. Now, I can have internet access almost anywhere in the world using my Sony VAIO FW490 and my LG Vu. The downside is that there are 2 more processes running under the hood now.

If you have managed to get bluetooth tethering to work using a different cellphone and/or network, please let me know and I will post that result on this entry as well. Thanks a lot and have fun!