Connect mobile using infrared (IrDA) with your PC

This article is about cell phones with an infrared connector. We created a list of connection types for our software Winfonie mobile.

Intro

Infrared adapters are available with USB and serial interface - please check if your adapter is supported by your operating system. When connecting a phone to a pc via infrared (IrDA) sometimes the problem occures that no stable data transmission is possible, though Windows recognizes the phone properly. Many new IrDA adapters and phones have a "fast" interface (Fast-IrDA). PC and phone then use a high transfer speed like 4 MBit for example which can lead to communication problems (e.g. Nokia 6310i). Often it is possible to limit the infrared adapters speed to 115200 Bit/s. This setting can be done in the device manager (control panel, system).

Windows NT 4.0

Windows NT 4.0 is not infrared capable. But there are third party solutions: QuickBeam-Suite with IrDA stack for Windows NT. File transfer software is included.

Windows 95, 98, ME, 2000, XP, 2003 and Vista

In general there are no problems. But you should check whether your infrared adapter includes a driver for your operating system.

A special case exists in Windows 2000 (pre SP 3) when you want to use your phone as a modem. Then you will need the Microsoft IRCOMM Update. In some cases IrCOMM2k software may help, too.

Tested IrDA chipsets

Here is a list of IrDA devices that have been tested.

Chipset	Status
IBM SC 20H2987 Fast IrDA
MosChip 7780 USB FIR
SigmaTel USB IrDA