IOGEAR Bluetooth 4.0 USB Micro Adapter, GBU521

I am a guy who normally work on computers and spend most of the time in front of my computer. I have a engineer degree on computer so I know abut this stuff. I tried many Bluetooth dongles, from the cheap ones to the expensive ones, but in here it fits the phrase that says As more expensive, better the product, well in this case it is true, but with this product it is not necessarily that it must be too much or crazily expensive to be good. Some customers clime to have problems with this dongle and some others asking some questions about this product PLEASE READ THE PRODUCT DESCRIPTION and this review so may help. I consider up to 20 dollars for a Bluetooth dongle is a good price. This dongle it comes with a very very nice software that connects everything automatically and recognizes everything instantly and will make a profile, if it has, of the product you have. For example I have my keyboard connected via Bluetooth, I also normally connect my JLab GO Bluetooth Wireless Headphones and the software of the Iogear Bluetooth creates an specific profile for my Bluetooth headphones and it creates another one for my cell phone, a Note 2, so the profiles works for you to control specific stuff of the devices you connect which is excellent and only expensive devices comes with such a software. I tried with the 2 dollars bluetooths and those burnt out or stop working in around 4 months. I bought this Bluetooth dongle about 4 months ago after my cheap ones, (2), bunt out, so I strongly recommend this dongle to anyone. Just pay a little bit more extra and don't get a pain in your butt suffering for cheap products, this is the real deal. There are some customers claiming that they need to upgrade or reinstall or uninstall and re install the software that comes with the Cd. Well normally even when the dongle claims to be plug and play, PLEASE INSTALL THE SOFTWARE FIRST BEFORE PLUG IT IN, generally every single product now days you have to do that install the software first and then restart your computer and then plug the device in. if that doesn't work then you can download the software from the webpage, but for me that won't be necessary. I am very happy with this dongle. Hope this review helps. Oh and PLEASE DO YOURSELFS A FAVOR.. READ THE PRODUCT DESCRIPTION BEFORE ASKING QUESTIONS... This device SUPPORTS UP TO 3 SIMULTANEOUSLY CONNECTED BLUETOOTH DEVICES AT THE SAME TIME BUT NO MORE THAN 3 otherwise the dongle will run it crazy. Thanks

This is a great solution for a pervasive problem with Apple's Mac Pro systems through 2013. I have not tested the new "late 2013" rount tower model, but all of the previous designs (Mac Pro 1,1 through 5,1) have Bluetooth antennas on the bottom of the case resulting in very poor performance - especially with the Magic Mouse. This adapter solves the problem and upgrades BT to version 4.0 BT LTE. The chip set is Broadcom, which is used by Apple. I think, starting with Mountain Lion the shipping kernel extension recognizes the chip and device, there is no extra driver software required. Previous versions required some editing of Info.plists. I simply plugged mine into one of the USB inputs on the back of the Cinema display. Based on reports I read, in some cases the system will automatically select this devices over the built-in ones. In my case, I had to use the BlueTooth Explorer available as a developer tool to activate this device as the system BlueTooth Controller. I also needed to pair all my devices again. But now, there is no more lag. Alas, it is not (yet?) recognized in Yosemite as a device suitable to allow hand off... Comment after some use: The device is not recognized during the EFI boot phase. This means that you have to use a USB connected keyboard for parameter reset, option boot device select, and entering the pass phrase for FileVault2. I always have a second USB keyboard connected, since this was also unreliable with the built-in controller. Otherwise, BlueTooth is now working great with Yosemite and Mavericks. I have not been able to get it to work properly with Snow Leopard even with an edited KEXT, but that configuration is not officially supported anyway. The controller is recognized, but I was unable to pair devices in a short test. I only use this for some old games requiring Rosetta.

Hello, I thought i would try and be helpful and let you know how to get this working on Mac OS. Indeed the packaging (and the old marketing materials, though it has since been revised) says Mac Compatible 10.3.9 and above. But as many have discovered the device is not plug and play on mac. However the way to get it working is pretty simple, and after making the edit it works very, very well. You simply need to edit the broadcom driver's plist file to include this device. You can do this in a text editor such as textwrangler. The plist file to edit is located at: /System/Library/Extensions/IOBluetoothFamily.kext/Contents/PlugIns/BroadcomUSBBluetoothHCIController.kext/Contents/Info.plist You simply need to add an entry for this device. The edit is done near the very end of the file. You will see a Mcirosoft device defined. Simply copy and paste that device right below it and edit it so it looks like this: <key>IOGear Bluetooth 4.0 USB Dongle</key> <dict> <key>CFBundleIdentifier</key> <string>com.apple.driver.BroadcomUSBBluetoothHCIController</string> <key>IOClass</key> <string>BroadcomUSBBluetoothHCIController</string> <key>IOProviderClass</key> <string>IOUSBDevice</string> <key>idProduct</key> 8680 <key>idVendor</key> 2652 </dict> Therefore the entire end of the plist file will look like this when done. <key>Microsoft Bluetooth 2.0 USB Dongle</key> <dict> <key>CFBundleIdentifier</key> <string>com.apple.driver.BroadcomUSBBluetoothHCIController</string> <key>IOClass</key> <string>BroadcomUSBBluetoothHCIController</string> <key>IOProviderClass</key> <string>IOUSBDevice</string> <key>idProduct</key> 156 <key>idVendor</key> 1118 </dict> <key>IOGear Bluetooth 4.0 USB Dongle</key> <dict> <key>CFBundleIdentifier</key> <string>com.apple.driver.BroadcomUSBBluetoothHCIController</string> <key>IOClass</key> <string>BroadcomUSBBluetoothHCIController</string> <key>IOProviderClass</key> <string>IOUSBDevice</string> <key>idProduct</key> 8680 <key>idVendor</key> 2652 </dict> </dict> <key>NSHumanReadableCopyright</key> <string>Copyright © 2002-2012 Apple Inc. All rights reserved.</string> <key>OSBundleLibraries</key> <dict> <key>com.apple.driver.AppleUSBBluetoothHCIController</key> <string>2.0.0</string> <key>com.apple.iokit.IOBluetoothFamily</key> <string>2.0.0</string> <key>com.apple.iokit.IOUSBFamily</key> <string>3.2.7</string> <key>com.apple.kpi.iokit</key> <string>8.0</string> <key>com.apple.kpi.libkern</key> <string>8.0</string> <key>com.apple.kpi.mach</key> <string>8.0</string> </dict> <key>OSBundleRequired</key> <string>Console</string> </dict> Save and reboot and now it works great. You may have to edit this file again if the OS is updated and they update the BT drivers, but once you know how to do it, it only takes a moment.

My new HP dv6 with windows 8 pro came with a Intel Centrino 1000 BGN, but no BT... I needed a cheap cost effective solution that wasnt going to and snag on my Targus neoprene case, cause damage to one of my USB ports, or have to deal with the HP/LENOVO whitelist of approved miniPCI-E network cards... IOGEAR USB adaptors have never disappointed... The GBU521 is my 4th IOGEAR BT adapter, but my first BT 4.0 adaptor... Thankfully with windows 7 or 8, just plug it in a free USB 2 or 3 port and windows simply installs the drivers without any bloatware.... Just throw the installation disk away, you don't need it.... This adapter uses the BCM20702 Chipset, and seems to be compatible with everything ive thrown at It.. It seems to have sped up my Canon MX860 printer (using a IOGEAR BT2.0 usb adapter), works great with my Asus Google Nexus 7 transferring files, working flawlessly with my MS Wireless Bluetooth Mouse 5000, and interfacing with my iPhone 4s. I would definitely buy this again at this price in a heartbeat, but this product's biggest strength is that I perfectly fits in your laptop and doesn't protrude out like Microsoft's mouse micro transceivers or other large dongles

I bought this device so I could use a small Bluetooth keyboard as a remote for my media center running Windows 7. It worked well. Apparently others installed the drivers from the CD and received a load of bloatware along with it. To avoid this problem, I'd simply extract the driver files to a folder (or use 7zip or similar if the software doesn't tell you where it puts it), but NOT run the supplied installer. Instead, go to Device Manager, right-click the Bluetooth adpater, click "Update driver software," and choose the folder you extracted the .INF files to earlier. This is how I recommend installing pretty much any driver on Windows unless you really need whatever else the manufacturer wants to throw at you. (It's also possible Windows 7 or Windows Update now has these drivers, as I don't specifically remember having to do this, but, like I said, it's what I normally do anyway, so I wouldn't have remembered it as anything special.) It worked as expected on Windows. I also am now using it on an older Mac in order to use a Bluetooth 4.0 peripheral with it since my Mac is old enough not to have come with built-in support. It's working very well on the Mac, and because I think it uses the same chipset as some of Apple's own Bluetooth controllers, I didn't even need drivers. Between the two of these systems, I've been using it for almost a year now with no problems, and I would recommend this adapter, especially for how little money it costs, to anyone looking to add Bluetooth support to a system that lacks it.

A few months back I decided I was going to build my own personal computer since I work on computers all day long and could save quite a bit of money building my own instead of purchasing a pre-built system. I wanted to clean up my desk top and have the least amount of cables I could so I bought this IOGEAR Bluetooth adapter. At first I thought it was great even though my keyboard wasn't recognized by my computer until it had loaded up completely keeping me from being able to enter the BIOs to fix any issues I was having. I got over that once all the settings were to my liking and my computer was working perfectly. The next problem I was having was I would have to unplug the IOGEAR USB dongle from my computer every few days to get my wireless keyboard and mouse to work. I ended up having to plug my IOGEAR USB dongle into the front of my computer taking up a valuable USB port I could have used for something else so that my wife or I could unplug it and plug it in every few days. This was annoying until I added more USB 3.0 ports to the front of my computer tower. The latest issue I've had with the IOGEAR USB dongle after only owning it a few months is that it has stopped working entirely. I've tried using it on several different computers to make sure it wasn't the USB port that was bad on my computer but it failed to work on any of my computers. It will not power up at all. I'm currently looking for another USB Bluetooth dongle to connect my keyboard and mouse.

First impressions.... The piece fits incredibly snug into the the usb port on my mid 2012 macbook pro with mac OS Sierra 10.12.2, I had to grip it with my teeth to pull it back out. Upon plugging it in, nothing happens. No pops up notifying recognition of something new; I wasn't sure if it was working. I plugged it in with bluetooth off, so I turned bluetooth back on and paired with my speakers. It worked, but I wasn't sure if it was the dongle or my internal bluetooth connection, so I pulled the dongle out (with my teeth cuz it fits so tight) and the connection was lost, plugged it back in and the connection automatically came back. Works great. No more lag or skipping. I just wish it wasn't so hard to plug in and pull out. I only have two usb ports and the other has a dongle for a wireless keyboard, luckily that one is easy to remove. Update: I've noticed that sometimes when watching online videos there will be a delay, or an advance actually; the audio will start before the video. If I remove the dongle and restart bluetooth it goes back in sync............I've noticed that if I disconnect and reconnect the connection, but not the physical device from my computer, then it will not reconnect properly the first time, instead it will play through my computer's internal speakers, but disconnecting and re-connecting the second time fixes the glitch. Still, it's starting to get annoying to have to disconnect and reconnect so often. At first I would have to dis/reconnect when first opening a video in either youtube or netflix but then I could continue to watch/listen in sync even after new videos loaded, but now I'm having to dis/reconnect with each new video loading. Not sure what is causing this, if it's the IOGEAR device or my computer or the bluetooth receiver on the other end........Pretty sure it is the IOGEAR device. When connecting with my internal bluetooth there is skips but audio/video are in-sync, and when connecting a different device to my receiver there is no problem at all, but going through the IOGEAR transmitter causes audio-advance/video-delay that is very frustrating, removing stars because of this.

Sorry for all of you having issues with your Windows experience... but I'll leave that argument for the tech sites. I wondered if this would work on my Linux machine - the Toshiba laptop had no built-in Bluetooth hardware. I plugged it into my machine running a 64-bit distrobution of Linux using 3.6 Linux Kernel series. Immediately the Bluetooth symbol showed up in the GNOME taskbar. Setup was just as quick-and-easy for my Motorola wireless headphones as with mobile devices and Apple hardware I've used before (sorry, I have no plans on using it on a computer using a Windows operating system). Anyway, it worked well for my Linux machine - I just got it out of the package ten minutes ago and listened to a music video on YouTube. If any other problems arise I will report back. But for now, this was a great purchase for the price. Now I can use my laptop for A/V when my wife and/or children are asleep. I have no idea what Linux software is actually required to use this thing, just letting you what I had and that it worked very well for me (if I find that out I will also share that with you).

Works out of the box in Win10 and OSX10.14 also hackintosh

This was perfect and did what I needed to do. The time it took to get between countries was very reasonable and makes my PC compatible with any Bluetooth device. Definitely recommended.

Fait parfaitement son job sous MacOS Sierra et Windows 10, même à travers VirtualBox. La clé est reconnue nativement dans les 2 OS donc pas besoin d'installer quoi que ce soit.

Revealing my nerd status here, I am posting this for the benefit of other users who are having trouble with their Mac's Bluetooth system. If you want a decent BT adaptor, you can use this - I have it and it definitely works with OS X. NOW READ THE NEXT BIT CAREFULLY... OS X DOES NOT select this as the default BT adaptor when you plug it in unless you have no BT installed in your Mac (rare), it is not telepathic. This is definitely not Plug and Play if you already have an active Bluetooth unit in your machine. Really honestly, Apple tech confirms this. You need to download the Apple Developer IO Developer Tools, and use the Bluetooth Monitor to switch off the internal Bluetooth circuit and select this little USB device as the ACTIVE Bluetooth device. If you do not do this, it will simply not be working and you will be wondering why things are no better as the little blue light will be illuminated. I have been struggling wit Macs and Bluetooth ever since the original G5 was released, the thick metal case causes some problems for Bluetooth reception, and buying this 'sort of' fixes it. I also have a better solution, but it is a bit dirty hands, pliers and tricky type fix - Although effective and I have carried it out for couple of other people as a favour.

Benutze den Dongle mit macOS High Sierra 10.13.6 auf einem Hackintosh system. Funktioniert tadellos. Um ihn zum Laufen zu kriegen, muss man nur 'BrcmPatchRAM2.kext' und 'BrcmFirmwareRepo.kex' nach '/Library/Extensions' kopieren und dann einfach den Rechner neu starten. Die Dateien gibts auf Bitbucket - einfach danach googeln.