Activating Bluetooth in Win 10 Home

I am going to buy wireless headphones. The pc told me to go into action centre and activate BT but action centre or center is not being recognised. A guide said to go into device manager, other devices - other devices in not listed. Getting confused now as nothing seems to work as per win 10 help or finding locations as per instructions???

do I have to wait until I have the headphones to activate bluetooth, I wouldn't have thought so. I want win 10 ready to accept them.

Type Bluetooth into Cortana and it will find "Bluetooth and other device settings". Click on that and it will take you to the right place. This does assume that your machine has Bluetooth capability. Once there, you can click on the "+ Add Bluetooth or other device" link at the top to pair with your headphones. There isn't much to do to "prepare" for when your headphones arrive.

strolin, been in trhe negative result, think I may have to get headset first them try. box.co.uk is only 5 mins from my house, so I'll have there, good lads very helpful. I upgraded my RAM (mhz) there last week.

elbmek,

Have you checked in Device manager for a Bluetooth entry?


If the entry is there check that it does not have any warning markers [which would normally indicate a faulty driver or hardware]. If there is a warning, go back to your Bluetooth card maker's website so you can download and install the driver [this driver might or might not be integrated within the WiFi driver - some of mine are separate & others are a single driver installation file to cover them both].

If you have the Device manager Bluetooth entry without any warnings then you should have the Settings, Device, Bluetooth on/off switch illustrated by strollin above. If not, please post back with your results.

If there is no Bluetooth entry in Device manager then either you do not have a Bluetooth adapter or it has been disabled in the BIOS. BIOS layouts vary from computer to computer so I cannot advise where in the BIOS you need to check.

About "A guide said to go into device manager, other devices" - The Other devices section is really just there to put hardware that has not been installed properly. If there is no Other devices section then that is good news. Perhaps that guide was written to address a specific fault rather than as a general procedure.

Denis

try3 - not listed, maybe I should try the window store?

If it is not listed in Device manager then you do not have a Bluetooth adapter.

This is hardware not software.

Whether or not you can add a Bluetooth adapter / replace your existing WiFi adapter with a combined WiFi-Bluetooth one depends on your computer.

Denis

You could always plug in a USB Bluetooth dongle, something like this: https://www.amazon.com/Sabrent-Bluet...+dongles&psc=1

One further point that I have only just noticed - you referred in your initial question to wanting to buy wireless headphones & then started referring to Bluetooth. WiFi & Bluetooth are not the same thing.

All my posts latched onto your references to Bluetooth. So did the others, I think.

1 Bluetooth headphones certainly exist.

• You can use them at the same time as other Bluetooth equipment such as Bluetooth mice & Bluetooth keyboards through a single Bluetooth adapter.

2 For all I know, WiFi headphones also exist.

• If they do they will include a USB dongle that uses up one of your USB connections.
• That USB dongle is specific to the WiFi equipment it comes with so you cannot use it to connect anything else & you cannot replace it with a dongle from elsewhere.
• WiFi headphones, if they exist, would not make any use of your existing WiFi adapter so that would remain available for you to use for whatever you want.

Since you seem to have built the computer yourself, don't the WiFi card specs confirm that it is WiFi-only not a combined WiFi-Bluetooth card?

Denis

got it installed, had to buy a usb bluetooth plug in and software, now BT is in my list of devices. BT headphones instantly recognised, and currently charging up. sorted!!