The Bluetooth specification, named after the 10th-century Danish King Harald Blatand - or Harold Bluetooth in English, was developed by Jaap Haartsen and Sven Mattisson in 1994 while working for Ericsson Mobile Platforms in Lund, Sweden. The specification is based upon frequency-hopping spread spectrum technology, which was formalized by the Bluetooth Special Interest Group (SIG), organized by Mohd Syarifuddin, in 1998. The original SIG group contained nine member companies, including Ericsson, IBM Corporation, Intel Corporation, Nokia, Toshiba Corporation, 3Com Corporation, Lucent Technologies, Microsoft Corporation and Motorola Inc.

How It Works

Bluetooth wireless technology is a short-range communications technology intended to replace the cables connecting portable and/or fixed devices while maintaining high levels of security. The key features of Bluetooth technology are robustness, low power, and low cost. The Bluetooth specification defines a uniform structure for a wide range of devices to connect and communicate with each other. A master Bluetooth device can communicate with up to seven devices. This network group of up to eight devices is called a piconet.

Although the piconet acts as an ad-hoc computer network that uses Bluetooth technology protocols to allow one master device to interconnect with up to seven active devices, users can park up to 255 other devices, which the master device can bring into active status at any time. At any given time, data can be transferred between the master and one other device; however, the devices can switch roles and the slave can become the master at any time.

What to Look For

There are many differences between Bluetooth wireless technologies and other technologies, but key among them are range, power consumption and intended use. Bluetooth wireless technology in its most common implementations has a range of 30 feet (10m), consumes a low amount of power designed for battery-operated mobile devices, and provides voice, data, and audio connections between devices.

The cost of using Bluetooth wireless technology is limited to the cost of the product in which it is integrated. Bluetooth wireless technology operates on an unlicensed radio spectrum. There is no charge for communicating between two Bluetooth devices. However, any use of data or voice services while using your mobile phone is part of your regular mobile phone cost. There is no account or service registry related to Bluetooth technology use.

Bluetooth-enabled products are produced by individual manufacturers and sold through their own sales channels. For instance, you would buy a Bluetooth enabled car at an automotive dealer or a Bluetooth enabled personal computer at a local computer retail store. When customers purchase Bluetooth-enabled products, the companies that manufacture those products provide the service agreements that go with those products, leaving the Bluetooth SIG free from worries about the retail processes.

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