What Is Bluetooth?

[VideoTechMan]

Ive been hearing alot lately about Bluetooth technology and how its used in alot of notebooks. Does anyone have a better idea of what Bluetooth is, and whether its better as far as wireless goes? Is it good as they say it is? Trying to get educated as much as I can about these things...thanks

VTM

[housepig]

as far as I've determined, Bluetooth is another name for hte 802.11b wireless standard.

tops out at 11mbs.

the newer standard, 802.11g, goes to 54mbs.

[rallynavvie]

Not quite. Bluetooth is meant to be a wireless bridge between devices, not act as a wireless network. It's meant more for direct connections between devices like a cell phone and a computer so that there isn't a mess of cables to deal with. It has a pretty short effective range because of this. It also has more software integration that typical wi-fi devices.

[miksu]

as far as I've determined, Bluetooth is another name for hte 802.11b wireless standard.

tops out at 11mbs.

the newer standard, 802.11g, goes to 54mbs.

Bluetooth is short range networking, maximum distance is something like 10-20 meters (30 to 60ft if that's your thing). It's maximum speed is below one megabit. It's intended to be used with devices close to your computer, like cellular, keyboard, printer etc. It's not meant to replace Wi-fi (802.11x), or Ethernet. Nor it's meant to be used for things like home or corporate networking, internet connection etc. It's more like replacement for PS/2, parallel, serial and usb-cables.

Bluetooth uses same 2.4GHz frequency as 802.11b and 802.11g. 802.11a uses something slightly above 5GHz (5.4?), but it's usage is restricted in Europe, because that frequency is reserved for another purposes in USA and Europe.

[Hardcoreruss]

http://uk.search.yahoo.com/search/ukie?p=what+is+bluetooth&y=i&ei=ISO-8859-1&fr=fp-tab...t&cop=mss&tab=

[VideoTechMan]

Ah, thanks for the info. Obviously then from the research info I read Bluetooth really isnt that much of a big thing. Well at least I wont have a need for it anytime soon.

VTM

[vitualis]

Bluetooth is a very good technology.

It is quite different from 802.11b wireless standard which is generically known as "Wi-Fi".

Conceptually, you can think of Wi-Fi as wireless ethernet. Rather then requiring you to plug in Cat-5 cables, these "cables" are now via radio waves. However, it is still in essence ethernet.

Bluetooth you can think of conceptually as a multifunction wireless "cable". That is, you can use it to (e.g.) replace a parallel cable (for wireless printing) a serial cable (for a variety of serial devices ... e.g., mice and keyboard and modems), replace a USB cable (e.g., PDAs) or an audio cable (e.g., wireless headsets/microphone).

Regards.