BT Controller allows playing emulator games in the same way. The app turns your Android device into a bluetooth gamepad, allowing you to remotely control emulator games running on another device (the host). Like Tablet Remote, BT Controller must also be installed and running on both the devices – the host as well as the controller – that are paired with each other over Bluetooth. As of now, the app only works with a handful of game emulators, and supports controlling one Android device with the other over Bluetooth connection only. Details to follow.
BT Controller can be used to control various emulators for Mame, Playstation, CPS2 and N64 games. List of all the supported emulators can be found on the app’s Android Market page (link provided at the end).
Here are all the configuration steps that you need to follow in order to set the app up on the controller and host devices.
- As mentioned earlier, you first need to ensure that BT Controller is installed and running on both devices.
- When prompted, activate Bluetooth on both devices.
- Make your devices’ Bluetooth discoverable from within the app by tapping the Visible button.
- Next, tap the Connect button, and select the device with which you wish to pair.
- From within the prompt that appears, choose whether you want to set the device as the Controller or Host.
- Assuming that you’ve selected one device as the controller, the other one is automatically assigned the role of the host.
- While the controller device’s screen automatically turns into a virtual gamepad, the host device’s screen displays a small preview window at the top-right of the screen. Tapping this windows takes you to your device’s Language & Input Settings. Make sure that you select and enable BTController as the default input method on the host device. Once that is done, the aforementioned preview window should now display any key pressed on the controller device.
Controller Device
- You need to manually map all the keys on the controller device’s gamepad to the controls on the emulator running on the host device.
- Once your done with setting the keys, load a game ROM into the emulator to start using your controller device to play it.
Host Device
We tested the app successfully with an HTC Desire as the controller and an HTC Desire HD running N64oid as the host device.
There are a couple of variants of BT Controller available in the Android Market. One is free but contains ads whereas the other one is ad-free and costs a little over $1. Market links and QR codes of both variants are provided below.
Download BT Controller Ad Free (Paid)