Asus Mini Bluetooth Dongle (USB-BT211)

Comes with user .pdf CD and drivers CD (2 cds). It's a small package, don't cut the package open because you won't even know the cds are in there until you've knicked the cd's with scissors or knife, they're the mini CD's. On my Jawbone Icon headset I can listen to my mp3s and podcasts from my desktop at about 30 feet through walls so don't buy into the reported 100 meter range because that'd be for completely open line-of-sight transmission, but that's still much farther than my Jawbone can talk back to the dongle. For example, when using Skype from your bluetooth headset you may be able to hear your caller at 30 feet away, but your headset can't transmit back so they lose your voice. You may have to move closer, due to your headset's transmit power. The drivers included on cd are for 64bit and 32 bit machines. For those who wrote about drivers problems, I think they have missed the cds in the packing, I did at first. Bottom line, for sure: on a Win 64bit system using Vista, you'll find this a smooth install and feel you've made a solid purchase. 14 bucks won't buy a family dinner at McDs any more, and this purchase may last you for years, 24/7? Obviously too, you can pop it out of the desktop and take it with you on your laptop after you've loaded the drivers onto that machine. It simultaneously runs all your devices. It syncs my Blackberry wirelessly when I walk into range while printing something and talking on skype (when running the BlackBerry desktop software), runs my new printer without any wires around the floor to across the room, and lets my wife listen to her foreign language studies cd's from her machine using her wireless headset with her laptop without bugging me when I'm working online with business. Go for it, good product. Wish I'd bought one long ago, now buying another... for her, so she doesn't cob mine.

Tried to install on two Windows 7 (64) computers, and followed the directions. Took over two hours to install, started receiving weird messages such as "Error Applying Transforms. Verify Specified transform paths are valid." Would halt installation. Website was useless, even painful to navigate. Came up with a work-around: Identify the program suite name trying to install in "add/remove programs", in my case it was "Bluetooth Suite (64)", then do a command line find in regedit and locate the main install key. Then delete the entire key. Then it worked. Might be more than the "plug and play" consumer could accomplish; anyone with some experience in the registry would have little trouble. If these directions seem vague, search for the "error applying transforms...." message, and you should be able to locate additional resource. If you can get it to install, it appears to work flawlessly, and I am enjoying both of the ones I purchased. Linked two desktops, cellphones to both, and all now share a "not network capable" printer between them. I couldn't buy a print server, I don't think, for $20 that would make this happen. Good product, terrible driver support (Win 7 64), happy once installed.

To start with, now I live in Brazil, and it's pretty hard to get something here without paying an import tax. So I asked my friend to bring it to me from the US. So, finally I have this dongle, plug it in, after driver installation it starts working... great! I can find my bluetooth sound adapter for the speakers and it plays fine only for two-three minutes, then the sound breaks, disappears, appears, plays again, disappears for a moment. The same sound adapter works absolutely fine with Samsung Galaxy None 2. I found out that if I touch the dongle with my hands or something that can transmit my energy to (or from) the device to my body, the dongle plays flawless. I believe that the transmitting module in the device is malfunctioning, as Windows does not detect the device as disconnected when the sound disappears. A slight touch with a hand - and the sound is back! I'd be grateful for any tips and tricks of how I can avoid touching the dongle to make it play (it's some basic electronics knowledge, but I'm not good with that), kind of attaching a battery to it with a sticky tape, powering it with laser beans coming from my eyes, using metal foil to increase the signal or something. I don't want to send it back to Amazon, as it is going to take eternity to deliver, and the delivery price is going to be double the price of the device. Thanks, Alex.

Just got opened the package around an hour ago and there is nothing inside but the dongle. I downloaded the driver and manual from the ASUS website. The manual says it's supposed to come with the manual and a cd with a software suite. I have been trying to get it to work with the driver I installed from the website and I just can't. A bluetooth dongle is a really simple thing, and I'm knowledgeable enough about computers that I should be able to install something as simple as this. After installing, uninstalling, reinstalling, etc, I am experiencing the same result, where I attempt to run the software that came from the ASUS website and it opens my devices > bluetooth with nothing it... I'm actually pretty confused. I will come back and update this if I can ever get it working. The manual has no troubleshooting. I'm sure I installed the correct software for the correct version of windows, and my windows install is quite clean. I should mention a few years ago I used a bluetooth dongle and it went off without a hitch. Update: Just got the dongle to be recognized by windows. I'm not sure how. I just kept messing around with it and reinstalling the software, etc. I got it to pair successfully with my Jabra WAVE Bluetooth Headset- Black [Retail Packaging ], but the audio comes only in one or two second chunks with a one second pause in the middle. It's very frustrating. I've poked around a bit on the internet and found that this is a problem many people experience. I wish I would have done more research before buying this product. I'm going to play with it for another day or so and return it if I can't get it to play audio correctly. I'll update the review either way. Also I've been using my bluetooth headset for listening to audio and as a headest with my cell for a couple weeks now and it works absolutely brilliantly. I'm convinced this is a problem with the dongle, and I don't suspect it's related to my laptop. I'll try it on some other computers I have.

I picked this device out with the thought that it would work out well enough. This device was to connect audio to the Logitech UE mobile boom box. I was surprised at how difficult it was to try and get it to work. I have worked with trouble shooting for many days now. The problem with the device seems to be in the programming of it's device drivers. The device has delivered audio in approximately one second bursts followed by one second bursts of silence and repeats this sequence as long as audio is being sent. I have checked the device with Win XP, Win Vista and Win 7 64 bit. All OS exhibited a similar type of delivery with the drivers off of the included device driver disk. I connected my cell phone and discovered another irritation when files were moved to the PC, it would force the phone to request a grant for every operation from connecting to file transfer. I am not sure if this the phone doing this or the Bluetooth driver. If I did not respond within a few seconds it would disconnect and force me to go through initiating a reconnect. I had gone to the Asus site and down loaded the drivers they had available, loaded them in each of the three computers and came up with the same results with Vista and Win 7 as was found with the drivers on the disk that came with the device. XP seemed to work after installing a more recent driver, but it later stops delivering audio to the Bluetooth speaker. It is difficult to use when the user is not able to cope with the technical issues of the computer. If it stops working, usually a restart of XP may fix the audio problem, but this is, of course, somewhat of a pain to have to go through just to get the Bluetooth connection working again. I tried to access their support system, with problems, as well. I filled out the form down to the last item, which is the security letter/number entry, and was met with "Not Excepted" after clicking the submit button. The format for letters entry is requested to be entered in upper case. I did this and it was rejected. It would then give me another sequence which I would enter and encounter the same rejection. This was done numerous times with same result. So it was not possible to submit an inquiry to their tech support nor any other department. The Bluetooth dongle appears to work, but the device drivers for Win XP, Vista and Win 7 seem to not work correctly or consistently. I have done more work with it using other browsers than Firefox, which I use the most. I have used another Bluetooth speaker, Motorola T305, and noticed that the audio worked well. I switched back to the Logitech speaker and noticed that it is now working. I will Know later if this holds.

I recently got an ASUS laptop at an exceptional price because it was a floor model. Among the features I liked were the inclusion of a camera and Skype. I tried a few options with equipment I had and a wired adapter. None were quite satisfactory, especially as portable alternatives to the built-in mike and speakers. The laptop doesn't have bluetooth included, but I have several very good BT headsets for my phone. The ASUS USB-BT211 seemed to have more consistently good reviews than the other bluetooth USB stubs. And I figured ASUS would likely make sure their accessories worked with their hardware. Plus, even with shipping, at under $16, it was a hopefully better choice than buying another headset just for the laptop. The dongle arrived this morning. As with several other reviewers, the included driver disk was useless. But the most recent beta version, downloaded from the ASUS support website, works like a champ. One note: the version I downloaded was in a zip archive. So, you'll need a way to extract the installer from the archive in order to run it. Once you do, installation is quick and simple. It actually took me longer to get to the Win8 pairing process for my headsets than it did to install the driver. The driver I chose says it's for Win7, but it works well in Win8. I've now tried both headsets -- one on Skype, the other in a Google+ hangout. They work great. There's a little tinniness to my voice and a little echo. I suspect I need to figure out the Win8 audio stuff to eliminate what I think might be a little bit of feedback. Overall, almost everything is a Pro. Driver installation is a minor Con. I'd recommend this bluetooth USB stub to anyone, if they're interested in connecting a headset. I haven't tried anything else to verify that anything beyond headsets or speakers would work well.

Needed this to provide Bluetooth functionality to my desktop PC so could use it with other mobile Bluetooth devices I own. I'm running Windows XP SP3. The package was minimal and the kind of plastic shell that takes a chainsaw to get into - typical for this kind of product. Installation was a simple (it's USB). I found that putting it on a shielded USB extension that I had from a previous device helped with reception and connectivity, vs. having it flush against the back of the metal PC case. The driver and Bluetooth Suite Tray app that comes with it was challenging to install. I won't get into the mind numbing detail, but suggest that you have had experience with installing troublesome device drivers and applications that are not multi-account user aware, and assumes everyone (the only one) on the computer is Admin... gah! The application tray is cumbersome to manage and configure, but since there's no standard Bluetooth feature in XP to handle it, it's what I'm stuck with. Once you get it installed and figured out, it does work. One caveat to it's operation - if the computer does a soft-reset (restart instead of full shut-down and then re-powering up), the driver fails to fully load. You get prompted to re-install the device (not necessary, and requires admin login), and it will fail to work until a full hard reset (shut-down, wait a few seconds, then power back up) occurs. It was the cheapest 'name brand' adapter I could find. It works (for me, 30+ years of experience with computers). Plug-n-Play it isn't. I would not recommend it to a casual PC user.

As an IT professional, I am pretty good at making computer things work. I did manage to finally get this thing to sort of work, after about an hour of fussing with it. I say sort of work because when I did finally get sound to come out of my BT headset, it was choppy at best, and about 2 seconds behind the people talking at best! I thought it was because I also had a BT mouse and keyboard so I removed those from the system, but nope, wasn't the problem. Tried it on another computer, same thing. Did manage to get it to work for about 3 minutes right and then it started the lag again. Stop the video and the audio would continue for about 2 seconds, start the video and the people talk for about 2 seconds before you actually hear what they say. Replaced this junk with a Motorola D200 Bluetooth Stereo USB PC Adaptor SJ0399A here on Amazon. It arrived, plugged it into a Windows 7, 64Bit system and within seconds it installed itself and worked flawlessly. I added back my mouse and keyboard and the headphones work perfect. Sound and audio are in sync and no choppy audio. If I had not thrown the packaging away I would send the Asus junk back. Since I did, I'll just throw this junk away so maybe it can reunite with it's packing at the landfill. Save yourself some time and don't buy this Asus garbage!!!!!!