Mobile Device Input & Connectivity: Stylus, Headsets, Docks & More

Many of us have used our fingers to be able to manipulate the screen of our mobile phones

or our tablets, but if you need a more precise input method, you might want to use a stylus. This digital stylus is like using a pencil or a pen,

and you're able to get very granular and fine control of that information on the screen. The stylus is usually connecting to the device over Bluetooth,

so it's wireless, and you're often able to use pressure sensitivity and the buttons on the device to enable different functions.

You do have to make sure that the stylus you're using is compatible with the device you're connecting to. So if you're using an Apple laptop,

you have to make sure that you're using the Apple Pencil or something that is compatible with that particular tablet.

This pairing usually creates in the best possible connection and enables the most number of features for the person using that tablet.

Instead of holding your mobile phone to your ear to be able to communicate, many people prefer to use a hands-free headset.

This headset allows you to hear and to talk into a microphone. So it makes it very easy to have these phone conversations. You might use a wired headset.

Many devices use USB as a common headset type, or you may use the older analog connection over a TRRS connector.

This is a tip-ring-ring-sleeve connector. It's commonly a 3.5-milimeter-style connector. You might also hear this referred to

as an analog audio jack. If you're using an older model of an Apple iPhone instead of using USB, you may need to use Lightning.

And there are wired headsets available that have Lightning connectors at the end. And, of course, there are many options for wireless headsets.

And most of those headsets connect to your mobile device using Bluetooth. Here's a close-up of that analog audio jack, or the TRRS.

The TRRS stands for tip-ring-ring-sleeve, where the tip is the connection that's on the tip of that connector, and the sleeve is the connector closest to the back

sleeve of the connector. And with a TRRS, there are two connectors in the middle, and these are both the ring connectors.

Wireless headsets of course, do not need any type of wires, so you might have something very simple that is battery powered and connected to your mobile device

over Bluetooth. If you use that wireless headset all day, you may find that you run out of battery,

and you might have to shift over to the wired version of that headset. If you like to listen to music on your mobile phone,

you may find that the speakers on the phone don't provide much fidelity. If that's the case for you, you might

want to use wireless speakers, which provide a better sound over this battery-powered and portable speaker system.

These are usually connected to your mobile device wirelessly using Bluetooth, which allows you to take this sound and move it anywhere you would like within the range

of that mobile phone. Many of our phones and tablets already include a camera or webcam built into the device itself,

and many of our laptops also provide that functionality. If you have a desktop or a laptop that does not have a camera or a webcam, there are

options to include external third-party cameras into that device. Those will often connect to those devices

over a USB connection. Once you connect the camera or enable it on your mobile device, you're now able to use it in the applications.

So this might be for simply capturing audio and video, or you might use it with an application to provide video and audio conferencing.

If you work in an office and you like to take your laptop home at night, you may find yourself unplugging all of the wires every day

to be able to take the laptop home. And then, when you come back to the office, you have to plug all of those wires back in again.

These would be wires for your video connection, your mouse, your keyboard, perhaps your network link, and anything else that needs to be physically connected.

There are easier ways to perform that function using a docking station. Docking stations are a quick way to connect and disconnect

a laptop without having to touch any of the cables that might be on that desk. They also often provide additional interface options,

and you might even be able to plug in full-size interface cards into the docking station. Here's a docking station that's in our office.

You can see that we have a monitor, and a keyboard, and a mouse, probably have a network connection on the back of this docking station.

And we can simply bring our laptop in, place it on top of the docking station, and immediately start working. At the end of the day, when we're ready to leave,

we simply disconnect it from the docking station and leave all of the wires in place. If you don't need support for additional adapter cards

and you want something that's a bit more portable, you might want to use a port replicator. These are very similar to a docking station,

but instead of getting a very specific docking station for a specific laptop, these port replicators are commonly connecting over a USB connection,

making it something that you can use on almost any laptop or desktop computer. These are also relatively portable,

because you don't have to worry about them being very large and supporting those adapter cards. This port replicator includes a lot of different connectors,

including USB connections and audio. This one also supports microSD and SD card reader built into the port replicator itself.

And on the other side, we have additional USB and video output options as well. If you're using a laptop in a confined space,

you may find it difficult to use an external mouse. For that reason, many mouse functions are built into today's laptops using a trackpad.

The trackpad is usually a large area on the laptop that allows you to use your fingers to be able to move the mouse around without having an external mouse

that takes up even more room. If you like using the trackpad on your laptop, you can also use a trackpad on your desktop

with an external trackpad. These are usually battery powered, and they connect to your computer over a Bluetooth

connection. Unlike a traditional mouse, a trackpad can provide you with other features

that perhaps a mouse might not be able to do very easily. For example, you can use different finger options on the trackpad to expand or contract different things

on the screen, which would be relatively difficult to do using a traditional mouse. Many laptops will allow you to disable that trackpad

using a function key. On this laptop, you can use a function F10 that you can see here with the blue icon,

and that will enable or disable the use of that trackpad. That way, you can continue to use the keyboard and know that you're not accidentally

going to click anything on the screen from the trackpad. If you like using a stylus on your tablet, then you might want to use that same technology on your laptop

or desktop computer, and you can do that by using a drawing pad. This is an external digitizer that has its own stylus to give you the same precise input

on a desktop or laptop computer that you might have on that tablet device. This is usually a third-party device

that connects to your computer over Bluetooth or USB connection and allows for very precise input. So if you're someone who enjoys using a stylus

or you need it to provide some type of artistic input, this might be a good solution for your laptop or your desktop computer.