I’ve been using Microsoft Surface devices for work for years now. Put simply, the company I work for is a Microsoft consulting and services business. So you would expect us to “walk the walk” as well as “talking the talk”, right?

Each time I get a new PC, I seem have challenges setting up the Surface Pen. So, today, after getting my pen up and running with a new Surface Laptop 3, I thought I should write about it (or at least post some links to the information that I used).

I was struggling to pair the Surface Pen in my Windows 10 Bluetooth settings. I pressed and held the top button, but there was no light. I unpaired it from the old PC and tried again. No change. Was it the battery charge? The Surface Pro that I had just unpaired from said the pen had 21% battery charge.

I decided to pop the battery out and test it. My battery tester’s needle didn’t move. 21% was clearly not enough. So, I popped in a new AAAA battery. Bingo! The pen’s light was illuminated and pairing was successful.

So, my advice would be:

• Press/hold the top button for a few seconds to put the pen into pairing mode. Look for a light.
• If this doesn’t work, suspect the battery. Even if it’s already working with another PC!
• If you’re still having trouble pairing after changing the battery, unpair from any other devices.
• The device name will be Surface Pen (I have a randomly-named device within Bluetooth range that I have no idea what it is, but it wasn’t the Surface Pen!).
• I have an older post which may help if you don’t have any AAAA batteries (and they don’t tend to be in the local shops).

Links

Here’s some links to the information I used:

• Identify your Surface Pen and features.
• Troubleshoot your Surface Pen.
• Change Surface Pen batteries.