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Smart Connect comes preloaded on Motorola phones and Lenovo laptops, but it can be used on any Android or Windows device. I decided to give it a shot on my Motorola Razr before uninstalling it, and I couldn’t be happier that I did.
If you haven’t tried Smart Connect yet, take this as your sign to change that.
I do a lot of file sharing between my PC and phones. Quick Share and Blip are good, but Smart Connect has an advantage over both. To get an image from my phone, I don’t need to unlock it and send the file. Smart Connect lets me browse the images from my computer and pull them over. The exception to this rule is iOS devices — you can use Smart Connect for file sharing on the iPhone and iPad, but you have to send them from the device.
Microsoft’s Link to Windows includes this and many of the features we’ll look at here, but it’s a chore if you’re using more than one phone or tablet. You have to select and connect to a different device each time, whereas Smart Connect stays connected to all your devices at once.
Zac Kew-Denniss / Android AuthorityIt’s been a while since Google updated Pixel phones so they could be used as a webcam on your PC. It only works when your Pixel is connected via a cable, though. Smart Connect lets any Android phone serve as a wireless webcam, which I find much more convenient.
I know that plugging your phone into your PC isn’t the end of the world, but my computer is quite a distance from where I sit at my desk, and having to route a cable (or remember where I have a cable long enough) on the few occasions I make video calls is a faff that’s easily avoided with Smart Connect.
Screen sharing is more advanced than you’d think with Smart Connect, and my only criticism is that it only works with Motorola phones. As you can see in the images above, you can mirror your phone screen or start a virtual display. The first of these is exactly what you’re thinking — whatever content is on your phone screen gets mirrored to the PC. It’s the virtual phone option that I use the most.
When I’m working, I often have my phone on my desk playing a YouTube playlist as background noise. I’ve never bothered using screen mirroring to open the app and mark off what I need to because doing so would mean using my keyboard and trackpad to try and exit YouTube and go to the app I want.
Streaming a single app from the Smart Connect main screen is one solution, but if I want to get multiple things done on my phone without my video pausing, virtual phone mode does that. It creates a separate desktop environment on your PC that doesn’t stop whatever is happening on the phone’s screen. Something else I especially appreciate is that the virtual phone adds home, back, recent, and other buttons to the bottom of the window, so you don’t have to use your trackpad to simulate touch inputs for those actions.
Zac Kew-Denniss / Android AuthorityIf you want to take things further, you can use Smart Connect’s desktop mode. It’s Motorola’s version of Samsung DeX, and as far as these mobile desktop experiences go, it’s pretty good. Usually, you’d have to plug the phone into a monitor with an HDMI cable, but Smart Connect on a PC lets you do it wirelessly. This isn’t something I use much. If I’m already on a PC and I can use Smart Connect to access all of the files on my phone anyway, I’d rather do that than run a virtual desktop. If this is something you use on the regular, though, having wireless access is a good thing.
In the Smart Connect app on a Motorola phone, there’s a menu for connected displays. Here you’ll find anything that supports Miracast or Google Cast. Google Cast displays will just mirror the display or a single app, just like a Pixel. But Miracast devices, like my old Roku, get a suite of features that Motorola has added that are really fun. Your phone can simulate plenty of input methods, from a trackpad to a virtual mouse that you point at the TV, although I found it less than usable and stuck to the keypad or trackpad.
You can launch the previously mentioned Desktop Mode and mirror your display, but what stood out to me are the TV and game hubs. These let you cast any game or media app to your TV while keeping the phone as the controller. Admittedly, I couldn’t test this out as much as I’d like. My Roku is truly ancient, and my Razr had to use a compatibility mode just to connect to it.
Screen mirroring was fine, but casting media was like watching a slideshow. With a newer Roku that didn’t have that problem, I could see myself using this. In this case, the phone streams the game to the TV, and you use a Bluetooth controller to play. I love the idea of cozying up in bed and playing Stardew Valley on the TV without having to move my PS5 from the other room.
Zac Kew-Denniss / Android AuthorityIf you’ve got a Motorola phone, then using Smart Connect is a no-brainer. It’s preinstalled and has features that will be useful to many people. If you don’t have a Moto but use multiple Android devices and a Windows PC, it’s still worth checking out, especially if your Android gadgets come from multiple brands. Usually, apps and services like this lock everything into an ecosystem, but file transfers, clipboard sync, and wireless webcams work on anything.
Simply put, there are many reasons to try Smart Connect. Whether you already have it on a Motorola phone or want to download it on another Android phone, I can’t recommend it enough.
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