# Bluetooth mouse

Related articles

- Bluetooth
- Bluez4
- Mouse polling rate

This article describes how to set up a Bluetooth mouse through the command line without relying upon a graphical application.

## Installation

Install the bluez package which contains the current Linux bluetooth stack (Bluez5). You may also want to install bluez-utils which provides the bluetoothctl utility. See Bluetooth for more information.

## Bluez5 instructions

Tip: Ensure that the bluetooth daemon is started before continuing.

The bluetoothctl utility provides a simple interface for configuring bluetooth devices. The text below is an example of how you can connect a bluetooth mouse using bluetoothctl:

    # bluetoothctl
    [bluetooth]# list
    Controller <controller mac> BlueZ 5.5 [default]
    [bluetooth]# select <controller mac>
    [bluetooth]# power on
    [bluetooth]# scan on
    [bluetooth]# agent on
    [bluetooth]# devices
    Device <mouse mac> Name: Bluetooth Mouse
    [bluetooth]# pair <mouse mac>
    [bluetooth]# trust <mouse mac>
    [bluetooth]# connect <mouse mac>

In order for the device to start on boot you may have to create a udev rule. Please see Bluetooth#Bluetoothctl for more information.

Tip: In case you were using USB Bluetooth dongle and moved it to another USB port, you may need to remove the mouse's MAC address in bluetoothctl with remove <mouse mac> command and repeat the entire procedure again.

## Troubleshooting

### Mouse lag

If you experience mouse lag you can try to increase the polling rate. See Mouse polling rate for more information.

### Problems with the USB dongle

If you have trouble with your USB dongle, you may also want to try:

    # modprobe -v rfcomm

At this point, you should get an hci0 device with:

    # hcitool dev

Sometimes the device is not active right away. Try starting the interface with:

    # hciconfig hci0 up

and searching for devices as shown above.

Categories:

- Mice
- Bluetooth