Clickers & Remotes
Remote Control for Prezi and LibreOffice Impress
How to set up reliable remote control for Prezi’s zooming canvas and LibreOffice Impress, from any phone in the room.
Ask ten presenters what the best presentation clicker is and you will get three different answers depending on whether they mean the little USB dongle in their bag, an app on their phone, or software that runs over the internet. All three do the same basic job, advance and reverse slides, but they behave very differently once you are actually on stage.
This is a practical, no-hype comparison of the three categories: what each is good at, where each falls short, and how to pick between them.
Key takeaways
- Hardware, phone (Bluetooth) and internet clickers all advance slides, but their range and setup differ sharply.
- Internet clickers remove the range limit entirely and are the only category that supports remote presenters.
- A hardware clicker is still fine for a single fixed room, one laptop, no remote speakers.
The three categories
Hardware clickers are small handheld remotes with a USB or Bluetooth receiver you plug into your laptop. Logitech's Spotlight and Kensington's Presenter Remote are well-known examples of this category.
Phone clickers turn a smartphone into the remote, usually via an app or browser page, either over Bluetooth (same short range as hardware) or over the internet.
Internet clickers send control commands over an internet connection rather than a short-range radio, which is what Cliqer is built around, more detail on how that works in what is an internet clicker.
If you regularly present in venues you have never seen before, an internet clicker removes one variable entirely: you no longer need to know the room size to know your clicker will reach.
Head-to-head comparison
| Factor | Hardware clicker | Phone clicker (Bluetooth) | Internet clicker |
|---|---|---|---|
| Range | 15 to 30 metres, line of sight helps | Similar to hardware | Anywhere with internet |
| Setup | Plug in dongle, pair once | Install app, pair once | Open a link, no pairing |
| Battery | Its own small battery | Phone battery | Phone battery |
| Lost or forgotten | Presentation stops | Rare, you keep your phone | Rare, you keep your phone |
| Works across software | Usually PowerPoint-focused | Varies by app | PowerPoint, Keynote, Google Slides, Prezi, LibreOffice |
| Multiple presenters | Needs multiple dongles | One app per person | Share a link, any device |
| Remote presenters (different location) | Not possible | Not possible | Built in |
| Extras (timer, laser, notes) | Rare | Sometimes | Usually |
| Typical cost | One-time purchase per unit | Free to low cost | Subscription, often with a free tier |
Where hardware clickers still win
Hardware clickers are not obsolete, they are just narrower in scope than they used to be. They are worth keeping if:
- You present from the same small room repeatedly and never need remote presenters.
- You want a device with zero setup steps and no dependency on the venue's Wi-Fi.
- You prefer a physical button under your thumb over a touchscreen.
Their weak spot is range. Once a room gets larger than a huddle space, or you are standing at the back of a hall rather than beside the lectern, Bluetooth and RF signals start to drop. We cover this specific failure mode in why your USB clicker fails in big venues.
Where internet clickers pull ahead
An internet clicker earns its keep the moment your setup gets more complex than "one person, one room, one deck":
Remote or hybrid speakers
A presenter in another city or country can control the same slideshow as easily as someone standing next to the laptop.
Large venues
No radio range to worry about, the connection is the same whether you are two metres or two hundred metres from the host computer.
Multiple presenters or a panel
Everyone gets the same link, nobody needs their own dongle.
Software variety
PowerPoint, Keynote, Google Slides and Prezi and LibreOffice Impress are all covered by one tool rather than one clicker per app.
Latency that actually holds up
Peer-to-peer WebRTC connections are fast enough that presenters do not notice a delay, more on that in clicker latency: why milliseconds matter.
How to set up an internet clicker with Cliqer
- Install the free desktop app on the computer running your slides, from the download page.
- Enable presenter control in the app, it generates a room link and QR code.
- Share the link with anyone who needs to control slides, they open it in any browser, no install needed.
- Start your presentation and go, the app runs quietly in the background from there.
Which one should you buy
If your presenting life is one room, one laptop, no remote speakers, a hardware clicker is cheap and fine. The moment you add a second location, a second presenter, or a venue you have not measured, an internet clicker removes the guesswork. Plenty of presenters end up keeping a hardware clicker as backup and using an internet clicker as the default, since a phone with signal is rarely further away than a bag with a dongle in it.
Our full presentation clicker feature page lays out everything Cliqer's remote covers beyond next and previous slide, and the product comparison page puts it head to head against the alternatives if you want the longer version of the table above.
A note on reliability
Whichever category you pick, reliability matters more than any single feature. A clicker that occasionally misses a click, or a laptop that occasionally drops its connection mid-talk, does more damage to your credibility than a missing laser pointer ever will. That is as true for software as it is for hardware batteries, which is part of why we run Cliqer's realtime connections on infrastructure we can fully account for rather than a black box, something we wrote about candidly in why we moved off Cloudflare.
Go deeper
FAQ
It depends on use. A hardware clicker is a one-time purchase, usually 20 to 60 pounds. Cliqer's free plan covers casual use with one device, with paid tiers for heavier use starting at a monthly subscription, worth it once you value the extras like screen share and remote presenters.
Yes, there is no conflict, many presenters keep a hardware clicker in their bag as a backup while defaulting to their phone.
They need an internet connection, but that can be mobile data on the presenter's device. The host computer typically needs its own stable connection too.
For a fixed classroom, a hardware clicker is perfectly adequate. For team teaching, guest lecturers joining remotely, or lecture halls where you pace at the back, an internet clicker handles both cases a hardware remote cannot.
Pick the one that fits your stage
If your next talk is standard and local, grab whatever clicker is already in your bag. If it involves a bigger room, a remote co-presenter or software beyond PowerPoint, try Cliqer free from the download page and compare plans on the pricing page.
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