How to connect a mouse to Android

How to connect a mouse to your phone

Much to the delight of many users, most smartphones now support such a function as connecting to a mouse, keyboard, monitor and other any object.

It is possible to do this in several ways, such as

A person may or may not be able to use any one method. To check this, you need to study each one, based on your goals and abilities.

connect, mouse, android

Why would a user want to connect a mouse to a phone? There are several interesting reasons for this urgent need:

  • A non-functional sensor. Sometimes it really happens that the phone sensor automatically begins to reject all touches of the person, it simply does not respond to a finger. This reason is one of the most common;
  • It may also be that the user wants to use a special application, but it requires the connection of the mouse;
  • Perhaps the mouse can help the user speed up their work on the phone.

All of these are the reasons that can be fundamental to the motive to connect the mouse to the device.

As mentioned earlier, there are three ways. It is worth talking about each of them separately.

The first way is to use a specialized cable. Smartphones have a great and convenient feature called OTG. It allows you to connect external devices to the phone. This function is accompanied by a cable.

Many budget models simply do not have this feature, so you should check the specifications of the phone before trying to connect the wire.

The cable must be purchased separately. Rarely, it comes directly with the device. As a rule, the standard length of the cord is about 40 cm, which is enough to put the device and comfortably use the mouse.

These cables come in a variety of connectors. It is necessary for each model of phone to be able to connect external devices. To connect the cable to the device, you just need to plug a small connector into the smartphone and in the large connector. the cable from the mouse. In the picture below you can see how to do it correctly.

After that, as a rule, the cursor will appear on the device. If this does not happen, it is worth rechecking the connections, plugs, and wires.

This way is not suitable for those mice that have a wireless connection. And the following method is an ideal alternative for a mouse of this format.

Via Wi-Fi

Generally, it works about the same as Bluetooth, but a number of conditions must be met for everything to work properly.

  • Both the keyboard, mouse, and phone must be able to connect via wi-fi;
  • All devices must be powered by a router (or the role of the router will be the phone that distributes the network).
  • If there is a problem with the network, or the electricity suddenly loses. all devices will stop working.

Connecting the mouse to an Android phone via Bluetooth

If you have a wireless mouse with Bluetooth, it is even easier to connect it to your Android phone. First, you need to make sure that the mouse is turned on and not paired with any other device. After that you have to go to the Android settings and enable Bluetooth there.

After turning on the Bluetooth on the Android phone, you need to turn the mouse over and press the button responsible for pairing devices. Usually this button is on the bottom of the mouse and is blue.

Button for pairing devices via Bluetooth

After pressing this button, on your Android phone in the Bluetooth settings, you should find your mouse. Click on it to connect it to the device. Once the mouse is connected via Bluetooth, the cursor will appear on the screen and you will be able to control it.

Sharing a mouse with an Android computer

We’ll need the DeskDock app, which is used to share your keyboard and mouse between your computer and phone. Although the free version of this app limits the use of the keyboard to a minimum, however, to separate the mouse perfectly, and there are no restrictions. We need to install the DeskDock app on the Android device and on the computer.

Download DeskDock Server on your computer

Java is required to install the program on your computer. if you don’t have it, download it from the following link:

Download the Java runtime environment (choose 32-bit or 64-bit version)

Install Java, and then run DeskDock Server on your computer. After launching, a small monitor icon with a mouse cursor will appear in the notification area. You don’t need to do anything else on your computer. The next step is to install the app on the Android.

Activate on Android Debug USB in the programming options. Then from Play Market, download and install the DeskDock app, and then run it. There will be instructions on how to download DeskDock Server to your PC. we did that a minute ago. Click on the “Status” tab, and then click “Connect” and connect your phone to your computer with a standard USB cable.

Once you’ve connected your phone to your computer, you can use your mouse to control your PC and Android. All you have to do is move the mouse cursor outside the area of your monitor and the cursor appears immediately on the Android screen. With the mouse and cursor you can control all the applications on your phone. If you like this way of using Android on your PC, you can invest in the PRO version of the DeskDock app. then the keyboard will be extra available and you can, for example, reply to text messages using the keyboard connected to your PC.

What we will need?

All in all, we will need a few items.

How to connect your mouse and keyboard to Android

First you will need to download to your smartphone or tablet a program called DeskDock. Of course there is another way (which we will talk a little later), but using DeskDock is the fastest, easiest and most reliable approach. DeskDock has both free and paid versions, but for our work the normal one is enough.

DeskDock turns your Android screen into a full monitor allowing you to move your mouse on the gadget screen and type text using the keyboard. But that’s not all. DeskDock allows you to use your device as a second screen, which is very convenient for work. You keep one screen as your workspace and another screen for assistive apps. In this case, in addition to installing the app on your phone or tablet, you also need to install the PC version. It supports Windows, MacOS and Linux.

DeskDock supports a pretty large number of devices

Now, in case you are using the smartphone version, you will need a mouse and keyboard that work via Bluetooth (if you do not have them, do not worry, below we will tell you what to do). Turn on the keyboard and mouse and start pairing the devices. Once this is done, you can fine-tune your gadgets in DeskDock. If you want to use your Android device as a second screen, then connect your keyboard and mouse to your PC, and DeskDock on your smartphone/tablet and DeskDock on your PC will connect themselves, organizing a single workspace.

Connect via USB

Most of today’s models support USB On-the-Go technology, better known by the acronym OTG. Windows devices support it by default, but Android devices may not support it at times. Owners of iPad will not be able to connect external devices via USB, as Apple simply refused to implement the technology. If the flash drive can be handled (details here), the mouse is allowed to connect only to the device with jailbreak, and then only a limited number of models. We will talk about the devices on this operating system a little later.

Most Windows devices are equipped with a full-size USB port, so you can use it to connect your mouse without any problems. You’ll be able to control the device as you would an ordinary computer or laptop.

Connecting a mouse to your Android phone or tablet via USB

There are tablets that have a regular USB port. You can connect your mouse to it with a classic USB cable that every PC owner has.

But, there are tablet computers which have an external port for external connection in the mini format, and in that case you can not do without an additional cord. In this case, OTG cable will help you.

To make the connection you need to do the following steps:

Connect the end of the microUSB OTG cable to the Android device, and the other end to the mouse;

Wait a few seconds until the devices are paired, and then you can safely get to work;

If the mouse is not detected during such a connection, it is worth checking:

Whether the mouse works by connecting it to a PC, for example;

And also there are Android phones that do not “read” external devices (for example, a mouse) through an external USB OTG adapter;

Check online information to see if your device is on this list;

If you get a valid set of simple manipulations, you can discover the good and useful features of your tablet or phone (to connect the mouse or other computer device).

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