The idea of using your Android phone as a mouse or keyboard might sound gimmicky, but it actually works pretty well. With the right software, your phone becomes a wireless trackpad that’s always on hand when you need to deal with awkward setups or when your regular devices let you down.
Why you might want to do it
You wouldn’t want to use your phone as a permanent replacement for a real mouse or keyboard, but it does have its uses. For me, it was to be able to control the old Mac Mini I was testing out as a media server for my TV. If you’re traveling with a laptop and would like a separate mouse, it’s one less thing to pack. Or if you’re giving a presentation, it lets you keep control from any part of the room.
Not to mention that input devices let you down at times. Mouse batteries run out, and USB receivers get misplaced. You can never go wrong with keeping a spare device on hand for emergencies.
There are a few apps on the Play Store that will turn your phone into a wireless mouse. I tried Unified Remote and Remote Mouse first. Both were perfectly fine and worked well.
If you’re happy to pay, I do recommend Remote Mouse. It looks nice and has a well-thought-out range of features, including shortcuts for launching apps and dedicated music and browser controls. You can open new tabs and move forward and backward in a browsing session without needing to move your mouse pointer at all.
But though it’s free to use, a lot of these extra features are locked behind a paywall, as either a subscription or a one-off fee. The app doesn’t make it clear which features are and are not available, though, and that was enough to make me look elsewhere.
Both apps need you to install a server companion app on your computer as well. Looking for a simpler and more flexible solution, I eventually settled on the very functionally named Bluetooth Keyboard & Mouse. This is also free with a cheaper paid upgrade, and it runs purely over Bluetooth. No further software setup is needed, and in theory, it can work with any computer.
How to set up your phone as a mouse
To get started, install Bluetooth Mouse & Keyboard from the Play Store. Click through the opening screens and, when prompted, accept the permission to allow the app to search for Bluetooth devices.
Make sure that Bluetooth is turned on on the computer you want to connect to, and you should see it in the list. If so, tap the computer and follow any further onscreen instructions. And that might be it.
If it doesn’t work for any reason, there are other ways to get set up. Since I couldn’t get connected to my Mac, I tapped “New device” to see the other options. “Connection Option B” was the one that worked for me. It lets you connect from your computer to your phone instead of the other way around.
Tap “Turn on discoverability” followed by “Allow” when prompted. This will let other devices see your phone for the next five minutes.
Go into your computer’s Bluetooth settings, and you should see your phone listed in the “Nearby devices” or “Add a device” window. Select the phone and connect, then wait a few seconds for it to complete.
You can now test out all the features. Swiping your finger in the main area should move the mouse pointer on your computer, and tapping the buttons should correspond to mouse clicks. Select the keyboard icon to start typing. For each feature, you’ll be prompted to confirm it works when you test it.
How usable is it?
It’s simple enough to set up your Android phone as a mouse and keyboard. But how usable is it, exactly?
Aside from a few connection problems with the app—it can be a tad temperamental—it’s actually surprisingly good. The latency is low. It’s not quite as responsive as a normal wireless mouse, but it is well within usable limits. You can improve the performance by tweaking the cursor movement speed, along with numerous other factors you’d expect on a mouse, like inverting the scrolling direction. Gentle haptic feedback when you click is welcome, too.
You can also enable on-screen shortcuts for things like copy and paste, which helps to make common tasks that much easier to achieve. The keyboard is a touch laggier but still functional. I wouldn’t want to type anything more than a short message with it.
Unlocking the app with a one-time purchase opens up a range of interesting extra features. These include a neat “air mouse” mode that lets you control the mouse pointer by moving your phone rather than swiping on the screen, macros, and multimedia shortcut buttons.
Using your phone as a wireless mouse and keyboard won’t replace your regular peripherals, but that’s not the point. It’s a practical and low-effort trick that (mostly) just works whenever you need it.
