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Setting Up, Connecting, and Configuring TP-Link Bluetooth Dongles on Windows Devices

Setting Up, Connecting, and Configuring TP-Link Bluetooth Dongles on Windows Devices

This wiki entry covers the Bluetooth dongles that were purchased for the Special Ed offices at the Bergland GOISD building in early 2026. They were purchased to allow a Bluetooth connection for earbuds/headphones on the offices' desktop PCs.

The GOISD purchased 4 x TP-Link model UB500, but these instructions should work for any models that have been purchased.

Note that it appears that this process cannot be done remotely via TeamViewer as the permissions are messed up that way. You can only install these in-person at the device itself.

For each dongle being installed, do the following:

  1. Sign into the PC under Administrator.

  2. If the dongle is new, remove it from its packaging and plastic casing (these boxes have a lot of waste and only have one USB connector inside of them). Either keep the box until completion or make note of the model number and then dispose of the box.

  3. Open Device Manager. Expand Bluetooth, right click on each configuration and click “Disable.”

    1. Note that on some, if you disabled one, it deletes everything else. Re-enable it and then disable it again and it will fix this issue.

  4. Insert the dongle into an open USB port on the device. The device will not react at all, this is normal.

  5. Go to www.tp-link.com/download-center and scroll down to the model number prompt, type in the model number of the dongle. Search for that model’s drivers and download them.

    1. The GOISD’s are UB500 models. If you’re installing new ones, the model number is printed on the front of the box.

  6. Once the drivers are downloaded, open the .zip folder and press Ctrl + A to select all, click “Extract.” It will ask to put them in a default folder location, accept this and let the files extract. Once the files are extracted, restart the PC.

  7. Once booted back up, open Device Manager. Expand Bluetooth and confirm that “TP-Link Bluetooth 5.4 USB Adapter” appears in the list. The number may be different if your model number is different.

    1. If the dongle does not appear, retry from Step 5. TP-Link’s guide also recommends temporarily disabling antivirus and firewalls during the install process if either of those are blocking the download.

  8. The dongle will be ready to use.

 

Recommended: Change the Dongle’s Name

You should change the dongle’s name if there are multiple of this device in use within a building or office space.

  1. Open Device Manager, expand Bluetooth. Right click on “TP-Link Bluetooth 5.4 USB Adapter” (your name might be slightly different if you’re working with a different model) and click Properties.

  2. A pop-up window will appear. In the top tabs, click on Advanced. Change “Name” to something that will be distinguishable and recognizable for the user.

    1. When these were set up in the Bergland Spec Ed offices, I named them according to the offices' users like “billie-office” / “DABB-OFFICE” etc. There were four of these deployed in the equivalent of one office space area, so they needed to be able to figure out which one was which easily.

    2. You can also break it down by location, such as “conferenceroom,” “busoffice1” / “busoffice2;” name, such as “bob-office” or “JANE-OFFICE;” or room number such as “rm104;” etc. You can also alternate using caps lock to help make certain names more distinguishable instead of making them all all-caps or all-lowercase. Try to keep it simple and something that the user will be able to easily remember and find.

  3. Click “Save” and close out of the pop-up window, then follow steps 1-2 again to confirm that the name is changed. You can also double check in Settings > Bluetooth, it will say “This device is discoverable as (name).”

 

Moving a previously used dongle…

  1. Remove the drivers from Device Manager on the original device, unplug the dongle. Follow all steps from the beginning of this page to install it on the new device and rename it appropriately.

Renaming the dongle…

  1. In the event where the location or user changes but the PC remains the same, follow steps 1 through 3 in “Change the Dongle’s Name.” You won’t need to change the drivers at all.

Restoring to factory settings…

  1. Follow steps 1 and the first sentence of 2 in “Change the Dongle’s Name.” At the bottom of the pop-up window, there is a button titled “Default.” Click that button and the dongle’s manufactured name will be restored. You can use this if you need to restore it for security reasons or if it’s going somewhere else/in storage and you don’t want the previous location listed.

 

Connecting devices to the dongle…

Close out of everything else and go to the taskbar. In the bottom right (may be hidden by an arrow), find the Bluetooth logo and right click it. Select "Add a Bluetooth Device" to scan for available devices. Select the device you're looking to connect and follow the on-screen prompts.