Use a Bluetooth keyboard and mouse on a PC with no Bluetooth
You have a Bluetooth keyboard and mouse, and a PC with no Bluetooth to pair them with. The usual answer is "buy a dongle". There's another way: pair them to your Android phone, and it hands them to your Windows PC over Wi-Fi, where they work as if they were plugged in.
Why your PC can't see your keyboard
Bluetooth is a radio, and most desktop PCs are built without one. Motherboards without built-in wireless, older towers and many small media PCs have no Bluetooth at all, so Windows has nothing to pair a keyboard or mouse with. No setting or driver can add it: Windows needs Bluetooth hardware to talk to Bluetooth devices.
Your phone does have that hardware, and a good one. That's the trick this guide uses.
Every fix, compared
- A USB Bluetooth dongle (about £10–20). Adds real Bluetooth to the PC for everything, including headphones. It's another purchase and takes a USB port.
- The keyboard's own USB receiver, if it came with one. Works well, but only for that keyboard, and receivers are easy to lose.
- A USB cable, if your keyboard or mouse has one. Free, but you're back to wires.
- Your phone as the bridge. Pair the keyboard and mouse to your Android phone, and Controller Gateway relays them to the PC over your Wi-Fi. Nothing new to buy, and it also relays game controllers.
The fix: pair them to your phone
Controller Gateway connects to your keyboard and mouse through your phone's Bluetooth, then sends every key press, click and scroll to your Windows PC over Wi-Fi. On the PC they type and point like a keyboard and mouse plugged straight into it.
Set it up
- Install the free Windows app on your PC (version 2.2 or newer). If you already have an older version, download it again and run it over the top.
- Pair your keyboard and mouse to your phone in Android's Bluetooth settings, the same way you'd pair headphones. A wired keyboard or a keyboard's USB receiver can plug into the phone with a USB-OTG adapter instead.
- Open Controller Gateway, find your PC and tap Start. Your keyboard and mouse appear under Mouse & keyboard, and from then on they control the PC.
Keep the app open on the phone while you use them: Android only passes the keyboard and mouse to the app that's on screen. Screen dim keeps it relaying with the phone's screen dark. Tap Stop and they go back to working on the phone.
What works
- Mouse: moving, left, right and middle click, the scroll wheel, and the back and forward side buttons.
- Mouse settings: pointer speed, scroll speed, invert scroll and swap the left and right buttons. Windows' own pointer speed applies on top.
- Keyboard: every normal key, with Shift, Ctrl and Alt combinations, function keys and arrows. Keys arrive as physical key positions, just like a keyboard plugged into the PC, so the layout set in Windows decides the characters.
- Shortcuts: Alt+Tab and the Windows key reach the PC on phones running Android 16.1 or newer; older phones may keep them for themselves. A few shortcuts always stay with the phone, such as Win+D, Win+V and Alt+F4, and Ctrl+Alt+Del can't be sent.
The Windows app runs inside your Windows session, so the keyboard and mouse work once you're signed in. They can't type a password at the Windows sign-in screen or answer admin (UAC) prompts, and windows running as administrator ignore them. Some games with strict anti-cheat may ignore relayed keyboard and mouse input too.
Controller, mouse and keyboard at once
Controller Gateway started as a way to use Bluetooth game controllers on a PC with no Bluetooth, and it still does that. Pair a controller, a mouse and a keyboard to the same phone and all three work on the PC together: the controller as an Xbox controller, the mouse and keyboard as themselves. You don't need a controller to use the mouse and keyboard.
Lost the USB receiver?
Many keyboards and mice from Logitech, Microsoft and others have both a USB receiver and Bluetooth. If yours does, you can skip the missing receiver: switch it to Bluetooth, pair it to your phone and relay it. A keyboard that only works with its own receiver needs that receiver, but it doesn't have to sit in the PC: plug it into the phone with a USB-OTG adapter.
From the sofa: range and TV PCs
Wireless keyboards struggle when the PC sits behind a TV or in another corner of the room. With Controller Gateway the keyboard and mouse only have to reach your phone, which is next to you, and Wi-Fi covers the rest. It suits a living-room PC plugged into the TV, a media PC with no Bluetooth, or a desktop across the room.
Streaming a game to another device with Moonlight or Steam Link? See the Moonlight & Sunshine guide for how this fits in.
Does Wi-Fi add lag?
A little. Each click or key press crosses your home network as a tiny packet, which adds about 1–5 ms on a normal 5 GHz Wi-Fi network: well under one 60 Hz frame (16.7 ms). Typing, browsing and most games feel normal. For competitive shooters, a mouse plugged into the PC is still the better choice. Keep the phone and PC on 5 GHz Wi-Fi for the steadiest results.
No dongle needed.
Use the phone you already have as the bridge for your keyboard, mouse and controllers. Free to try: 6 hours with everything unlocked.