Bluetooth Definition and Bluetooth Personal Wireless

Learn more about Bluetooth definition and how it works. If your computer already has a wireless network, you will be very interested to read the following section on Bluetooth technology.

What would you say if your MP3 player, your PDA, your mobile phone, and just about anything else connected to your computer could be wireless as well? Well, guess what -- it's really possible!

Personal Area Network

Using bluetooth wireless networking for your personal devices is often referred to as PAN, meaning Personal Area Network. The idea behind PAN is we'll soon be able to all have laptop computers with their batteries charged without connecting any wires to them at all -- you just put your Bluetooth device close to the computer, and the computer recognizes it and starts using it immediately.

Bluetooth was introduced 1999, and has gotten more and more popular ever since. It was designed to be safe, cheap, and easy to use from the very beginning.

We can distinguish between two categories of Bluetooth that are popular: class 1 and class 2. The most common and cheaper standard is Class 2 which enables you to have a device that is placed up to 32 feet (10 meters) away. Class 1 is less common, but it is not so difficult to find some devices that use it. Their range is ten times bigger: 320 feet or 100 meters.

Bluetooth Definition -- How Does Bluetooth Work?

Bluetooth is infinitely flexible over 802.11 wireless networking, but has a shorter range. Basically, a Bluetooth-enabled computer is equipped with a Bluetooth receiver which can be used with as many as seven close proximity Bluetooth devices. In contrast, wireless devices do not have to have it installed if they support it, as it is already integrated.

Like 802.11, Bluetooth uses radio signals to create bandwidth. It doesn't however work the same way as an old wireless mouse or keyboard, which needed a receiver to be plugged into one of the ports of your computer, and didn't have the range or stability of Bluetooth.

Many computers are equipped with Bluetooth, especially Apple Macs. If you want to install Bluetooth to a computer that doesn't have it installed yet, you should probably use a USB to bluetooth adapter even though internal Bluetooth devices are available. You can actually get a Bluetooth card even if you have a laptop and a spare PCMCIA slot.

Bluetooth Definition -- What Can You Do With Bluetooth?

Really widespread are Mobile phones with Bluetooth as are PDAs, giving access to great features such as the instant synchronization of addresses and calendars to a computer.

Besides this, almost anything that would usually use USB can be done with Bluetooth instead. Examples include your digital cameras, MP3 players, printers, and even mouse and keyboards. If you read the list of Bluetooth 'profiles' (those things that could theoretically be Bluetooth enabled), it includes cordless phones, faxes, headsets, and even video.

Above all, Bluetooth represents a replacement for USB: some say that whereas 802.11 wireless networking is wireless Ethernet, Bluetooth is wireless USB.

Bluetooth Definition -- Not Just for Computers

A major advantage of Bluetooth is that it isn't just useful for connecting devices to computers -- it can be used to connect basically anything you want to something else, if both things are Bluetooth-enabled and can "see" each other.

Mobile phones make use of this with hands-free headsets which often use Bluetooth to communicate with the phone, while some cars have on-board computers that connect with a Bluetooth phone and let you to make hands-free calls, regardless of where you left your phone within the car.

Above all, Bluetooth devices are able to communicate with each other. This means that you can, for example, send messages from your Bluetooth PDAs to others in close range. This is called 'bluejacking', which first occurred when a man sent a Bluetooth message to another man's Nokia phone while they were in the bank at the same time. The message? 'Buy Ericsson'.

Since then, it has become possible to use bluejacking to send images and advertisements as well, letting billboards send messages to your phone, something we call 'bluecasting'. Whether you think that's funny or frustrating, of course, is your own opinion.

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