ASUS Maximus III Extreme mobo lets Bluetooth cellphones tweak settings

ASUS has been giving its motherboard owners ways to tinker with their wares for years now, but it sounds like things are about to get seriously amped up with the Maximus III Extreme. The P55-based board, which falls into the growing Republic of Gamers lineup, adds a new feature to the existing ROG Connect overclocking system: Bluetooth control. You heard right -- ASUS claims that this mainboard actually "enables users to tweak system settings wirelessly over Bluetooth via a mobile phone." More specifically, RC Bluetooth allows users to "review the status of their systems' hardware and tweak parameters wirelessly from a Bluetooth-enabled PDA phone," with examples like controlling music playback and dealing with Skype conversations given. There's no specific mention of a price or release date, but you can bet we'll be digging for specifics on the limits and functionality baked in here.

[SamUK Posted Nov 30th 2009 4:05PM]

iPhone app no doubt.

[iHakr Posted Nov 30th 2009 4:21PM]

@SamUK if apple doesnt block it. haha

[Kamokazi Posted Nov 30th 2009 4:21PM]

@SamUK

Likely, but I would say more likely is a WinMo app, because Asus' own PDA phones have been running WinMo for years.

[ToniCipriani Posted Nov 30th 2009 6:56PM]

@SamUK
Can't, because Apple doesn't allow access to the Bluetooth stack. Same goes for the iPhone OBD-II app, can't be used with ELM327s because of this and must use a Wi-Fi based dongle.

[GnuGeek Posted Dec 1st 2009 3:15AM]

Gimmick

[Skate It Dont Spray It Posted Nov 30th 2009 4:11PM]

did someone say "LAN party remote underclocking of opponents machines to gain a distinct advantage" ??
Yes, I think someone did.

[Streetfights Posted Nov 30th 2009 4:19PM]

@Skate It Dont Spray It

brilliant!

[FallenArms3 Posted Nov 30th 2009 5:08PM]

@Skate It Dont Spray It
No, but they thought it.

[Hackettman Posted Nov 30th 2009 4:13PM]

At first I thought how bad of an idea it was but for basic remote function as well, it is pretty sweet to have the option of doing some deeper mechanics to your machine and then change the song to some slayer and overclock .....

[Drago Posted Nov 30th 2009 4:19PM]

Overkill

[One Love Posted Nov 30th 2009 4:19PM]

Oh, for the love of...whats next, tweaks by tweet?

[gadgetmerc Posted Nov 30th 2009 4:25PM]

@One Love

That would be a simple arduino project.

[John H Posted Nov 30th 2009 4:21PM]

Back when I had a Palm Treo 650, I had an app called BlueRemote that emulated a Bluetooth keyboard and mouse. I found it particularly useful for controlling media playback from my couch when my laptop was hooked up to my TV. I've been searching for an iPhone app that affords similar functionality and so far have come up short. If this mobo will accept basic keyboard and mouse input commands over Bluetooth, that could be particularly sweet, not to mention dramatically opening up the potential uses of this functionality by not building an app that only works for certain functions or with certain apps.

[Aluminoid Posted Nov 30th 2009 4:43PM]

@John H This does what you are looking on Android.
http://remotedroid.net/

[YodaEXE Posted Nov 30th 2009 4:45PM]

@John H Look up AirMouse on your iPhone. I use it on my iPod Touch and it works quite well.

[rwczen Posted Nov 30th 2009 4:59PM]

@John H Try HippoRemote. It is not bluetooth, works over your wifi lan. I bought the pro version this weekend and it is awesome. I'm using it as a mouse and keyboard to control my HTPC. It has profiles that you can choose easily, for example when you go into Media Center, it will have all the controls for MC, and if you switch Chrome, you pick that profile to get related controls for browsing the web. Very nice app, so far works great for me.

[samagon0 Posted Nov 30th 2009 5:38PM]

@John H Someone already said AirMouse, but I will parrot him, it works well!

[bolezhinkov Posted Nov 30th 2009 4:28PM]

anyone who thinks this is 'too much' needs to get real! more options is better for everyone.

[Endadget Posted Nov 30th 2009 4:40PM]

Unless this is done directly to the motherboard (BIOS) it's really nothing special.
We've had programs for controlling the PC via bluetooth with various phones for a long time...

So this might just be another Windows (or whatever OS) program. But still, I surely welcome it. The more the better!

[aigarius Posted Nov 30th 2009 4:44PM]

Nothing special really if that is just what was described in the post. However, if there were a dedicated micro controller with a Bluetooth chip that could tweak overclocking, voltage, timing and cooling setting from a mobile phone at runtime, independent of any software on the running OS, now then it would have been very, very cool :)

[CtrlBurn Posted Nov 30th 2009 4:50PM]

Is there an advantage to this over a Bluetooth dongle and an app that can be controlled via Bluetooth? I've never messed with PC Bluetooth, but it seems like the Skype and media playback functions wouldn't be dependent on the mobo.

[nevarDeath Posted Nov 30th 2009 5:20PM]

Yep, if this is a BIOS controlled feature, I can't wait to hack it!

[Neo Posted Nov 30th 2009 6:05PM]

Bro, I'm in your pc hacking your bios... can you imagine if this was on a college campus or on a laptop. Bluetooth is a weaker standard to get into than WiFi, I'd be livid if someone overclocked it, and it fried mobo and cpu.

so, yes cool, but really is it necessary?

[James Posted Dec 1st 2009 3:00AM]

@Neo

haha i could see someone cranking up all the voltages and frying someones board.

[Nicnac Posted Nov 30th 2009 6:13PM]

the link says "Thus, to manage the process of overclocking the system components can be from any mobile phone equipped with Bluetooth module."

How do you get from that to selecting music tracks and skype functions? For all you know this is just a limited set of functions in the bios.

[poematik14 Posted Nov 30th 2009 6:50PM]

Sounds like a fun novelty that would wear off in a few days and you would eventually forget your computer can even do it

[prokashoni Posted Nov 30th 2009 7:33PM]

sounds cool!