The combined use of the PC and mobile phone is increasingly present in our lives. There are some tools that allow you to link both devices and take advantage of their joint use, but not all of them are effective. What is the best application to control an Android mobile from the PC? That is what we are going to find out in this post.
In the same way that there are already numerous mobile applications that have a desktop version so we can use them on our computer screen, it is interesting to have an app that allows us to act on our smartphone from the comfort of a PC.
It's not a matter of a whim. An app of this type can be very useful in certain cases. For example, when we have had an accident with our mobile phone and the screen has been broken. In a situation like this, we will appreciate being able to use it from the PC through a specific application until we can repair the mobile.
Microsoft's solution: Mobile Link
In 2018, Microsoft launched a new application destined to become a kind of "bridge" between a PC (with Windows 10 and 11) and any kind of Android device. Although she was originally named “My Phone,” she is currently known as Mobile Link (phone link in English).
Mobile Link could be a good application to control an Android mobile from the PC. It comes installed by default in Windows 11 and can be downloaded for Windows 10 in the Microsoft store. It serves for Connect our Android mobile to the PC and from there access all its functions.
These are some of the things we can do with Enlace Móvil:
- Make and receive calls from your own PC.
- Manage notifications on PC.
- Silence your phone or put it in “Do Not Disturb” mode.
- Check the battery level, WiFi connection and many other aspects from the PC.
Especially interesting is the call "mirror mode" (mirroring), which allows us to view the phone screen as another window within Windows. However, not everything is positive. Use this app represents a huge battery consumption, so many users prefer to use it only occasionally.
Given this handicap, there are other alternatives that are worth considering, such as the one we present below:
A powerful alternative: Scrcpy
Scrcopy (Screen Copy) it's a tool open source with wide configuration possibilities. Exactly what we are looking for: the best application to control an Android mobile from the PC. It can be downloaded from your own GitHub page and run on a PC without any problem.
What are we going to be able to do with Scrcpy? Besides the screen mirroring, which is its main function (at least, the most used), this tool has a lot of interesting features:
- Supports wireless connection between devices.
- Run installed Android applications on your PC.
- It allows us to share files between devices.
- It has various controls for screen mirroring (read only, screen off, show touches, etc.).
When we connect PC and mobile through Scrcpy, a server runs on both devices. This allows communication through a specific protocol to run videos from the smartphone on the PC screen, and vice versa.
The connection is Wireless. , but to establish the configuration we will need to connect both devices with a USB cable, at least in the first steps. This is how to proceed:
- First We connect the PC to the phone via USB.
- Next, we must enable USB debugging on our mobile. This is achieved in a very simple way: in the search box of the phone settings we look for the option "USB debugging" and we activate it.
- then we install the adb drivers on the computer, which are found in the same package that we downloaded previously (you just have to click on the adb.exe executable).
- We connect both devices to the same Wi-Fi network.
- At this point we have to get the IP address of the mobilel (Settings > About phone > IP address).
- Then we open the Windows console and activate "adb TCP/IP" using the command adb tcpip 5555.
- Now we disconnect the USB cable that connects the PC to the mobile.
- Once this is done, we execute the command "adb connect »*
- Finally, we execute the command "scrcpy".
(*) The IP address of our Android smartphone and the one we obtained in step 5.
These are the steps that allow us to use this tool wirelessly. However, it is also possible to do it the "traditional" way, that is, by connecting the phone to the computer with a USB cable.
Is Scrcpy the best application to control an Android mobile from your PC? It is always possible that a new tool will appear that improves what Scrcpy currently offers us, but today, we believe that this is the best that a user can resort to. It's worth trying.