Bluetooth Connections
Serial Bluetooth Connection To WindowsXP

by Matthew Ford 1^st August 2012
© Forward Computing and Control Pty. Ltd. Ltd. NSW Australia
All rights reserved.

How to setup a Serial Bluetooth Connection To WindowsXP

pfodApp^TMfor Android allows you to control micro-controllers, like Arduino, via bluetooth, from your Android phone. No Android programming required.

For testing purposes it is convenient to make serial Bluetooth connections between you mobile phone and a serial terminal session on your PC. This page shows you how to connect your mobile phone to a serial Telnet session on your WindowsXP computer. For removing connections from you Android phone or making connections to Windows7, Mac or Linux computers, see Serial Bluetooth Connections.

Here I will be connectioning a J2ME serial bluetooth application on a Samsung C3110 mobile phone to a WindowsXP computer.

To connect your mobile's pfodApp to a terminal session once you have set up the bluetooth connection from your Android mobile to the PC follow the steps described here to connect to your terminal session from your mobile's pfodApp. Note: the timeout for the PC connection is set to 0. You can now test various micro-page pfod messages to see how they will be displayed on the pfodApp and what command messages the pfodApp will send back when the user selects the various options.

Connecting to Windows XP

Open the Control Panel and select Bluetooth Configuration. On your Window7 computer, you should normally leave your PC bluetooth set to NOT be discoverable. This is your primary security protection. With this option un-ticked only devices that know your bluetooth address can request a connection.

Tick the “Let other Bluetooth devices discover this computer” and Click OK.

If you need to find the Bluetooth address of your computer. Click on the Diagnostics tab above (here I have blanked out my bluetooth address)

Next setup your Serial Bluetooth Connection. In my case this dialog is accessed from the LocalServces tab of the Bluetooth Configuration dialog .

Set it to start up Automatically but do NOT secure it.

Clicking OK on the above dialog updates the Local Services Dialog below.

Pairing the Mobile Phone to WindowsXP

To pair you mobile phone to WindowsXP, on the mobile phone scan for new Bluetooth devices. On my Samsung C3110 when it finds the computer it prompts for security code. When I enter one, say 1234, then the computer pops up a Security Code Request dialog. Enter the same code here to pair the devices.

Installing the PC Terminal Emulator

To communicate with your PC via the bluetooth serial connection, you need a terminal emulator. I use TeraTerm (http://ttssh2.sourceforge.jp) but there are lots of other possibilities, including Hyperterminal

Open TeraTerm and start a new connection. Choose the COM port that matches your Bluetooth Serial Port.

Open the Setup → Terminal dialog and tick Local Echo and set New-Line Receive: to CR+LF. Local echo lets you see what you are typing and Receive CR+LF makes the display more readable.

Connecting your Mobile Phone to TeraTerm

You need to start TeraTerm before connecting from your mobile phone. The J2ME application I am using here sends a message immediately after the connection is established. If TeraTerm is not already running and listening to the bluetooth COM port, then you may miss the message.

Assuming your J2ME application has been setup to connect to the Bluetooth address of your PC, start the J2ME application on your mobile phone and it will connect to your PC.

The TeraTerm window shows the {.} message from the J2ME application.

The serial connect is now established.

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