Main Page | See live article | Alphabetical index

Bluetooth

Table of contents
1 History
2 Currently
3 Future Bluetooth
4 Past Bluetooth
5 See also
6 External links

History

Bluetooth is an Industrial Specification for Wireless PANs first developed by Ericsson, later formalized by the Bluetooth SIG, which was formally announced 20th May 1999. It was composed by Sony Ericsson, IBM, Intel, Nokia and Toshiba.

The system is named after a Danish king Harald Blåtand, otherwise known as Harold Bluetooth.

Currently

The version shipping currently to consumers as embedded bluetooth and USB-dongles is 1.1. It is a wireless radio standard primarily designed for low power consumption, with a a short-range (from 10 up to 100 meters) and with a low-cost transceiver microchip in each device.

It can be used to wirelessly connect periphery like printers or keyboards to computers, or to have personal digital assistants (PDAs) communicate with other nearby PDAs or computers. Cell phones with integrated Bluetooth technology have also been released in large numbers, that can connect to computer, PDAs and, very specially, to handsfree.

However, the standard also includes support for more powerful longer-range devices suitable for constructing a Wireless LAN. Every Bluetooth device can simultaneously maintain up to 7 connections. Every device can be configured to constantly announce its presence to nearby devices, in order to establish a connection. It is also possible to password protect a connection between two devices, so that no others can listen in.

The protocol operates in the license-free ISM band at 2.45 GHz. It reaches speeds of 723.1 kbit/s. In order to avoid interfering with other protocols which may use the 2.45 GHz band, the Bluetooth protocol divides the band into 79 channels and changes channels up to 1600 times per second.

Bluetooth should not be compared to WiFi, a faster protocol requiring more expensive hardware that covers bigger distances and uses the same frequency range. While Bluetooth is a cable replacement creating personal area networking between different devices, wi-fi is a cable replacement for local area network access. They serve different purposes.

Future Bluetooth

The Bluetooth SIG is working on versions 1.2 and 2.0

Bluetooth 1.2

This version is backwards compatible with 1.1 and the major enhancements include

Bluetooth 2.0

There is no definitive information about what will be included in 2.0, but some details have been released by
Ericsson research scientists:


Past Bluetooth

Versions 1.0 and 1.0B had numerous problems and the various manufacturers had great difficulties in making their products interoperable. 1.0 and 1.0B also had mandatory Bluetooth Hardware Device Address (BD_ADDR) transmission in the
handshaking process, rendering anonymity impossible at protocol level, which was a major set-back for services planned to be used in Bluetooth environments, such as Consumerium.

See also

External links


See also Harold Bluetooth, king of Denmark.