Look for this logo on all Bluetooth wireless technology enabled products.

Everyone has a cell phone. And a lot of people don't think twice about answering a call in their vehicle by checking to see who's calling, and then putting the phone to their ear. That requires taking your eyes and at least one hand off the road. But with Bluetooth® in your car, there's no need to take your hands off the wheel or your eyes off the road — just talk. Your phone call is broadcast through your car's speakers.

But that's just one application, the tip of the iceberg so to speak, as we move further toward a life without wires. You'll find many other uses for Bluetooth, such as playing music from your iPod touch® wirelessly over your compatible car stereo or home audio system. Bluetooth technology is also used in wireless computer peripherals, such as keyboards and mice. Bluetooth also makes the wireless controllers of Nintendo's Wii™ and the Sony PlayStation® 3 game systems possible. Welcome to the world of Bluetooth wireless technology.

What is Bluetooth?

Developed by engineers at Ericsson in the late 1990s, Bluetooth is an increasingly popular technology that enables short-range wireless communication between a variety of electronic devices. Its most significant feature is that it allows devices to "talk" (transfer and synchronize data) wirelessly with one another, eliminating the need for the seemingly endless tangle of cords, cables, and adapters necessary for a lot of today's technology.

The Bluetooth Special Interest Group (SIG) was founded in 1998 to oversee the development and introduction of Bluetooth technology. Intel, IBM, Nokia, and Toshiba joined Ericsson as the founding members of the SIG, and more than 8,000 companies have signed on since.

In order to sell products with the Bluetooth specification and logo, manufacturers must be members of the SIG and the devices must meet well-outlined qualifications. These guidelines ensure that Bluetooth wireless devices worldwide can communicate with one another, regardless of manufacturer or country of origin.

The Bluetooth enabled Eclipse CD5030 lets users control their cell phones wirelessly via their car stereo.

• Why is it called Bluetooth?
  The Bluetooth wireless specification got its name from Harald Blaatand (translates to "Bluetooth"), a 10th-century Danish king who used diplomacy to negotiate a truce between two feuding factions. In fact, the Bluetooth logo is an overlay of the Danish characters for the king's initials: H.B.

  The 21st century's Bluetooth does essentially the same thing — facilitating communication among devices that don't typically interact with one another — leading to some exciting possibilities.

• Range and speed
  Typically, devices with Bluetooth technology have a range of 10 meters (about 30 feet), and data transfer rates up to 3 megabytes (375 kilobytes) per second. That makes Bluetooth technology suitable for transferring smaller files such as text documents and cell phone contacts, as well as lower-quality images and audio. At these transfer speeds, Bluetooth can't really handle streaming video or high-quality images and audio at this point, but this may change in the future when new Bluetooth standards are introduced. Note: In order to stream video and TV signals, a connection speed of at least 10 Mbps is needed.

• Walls? No problem.
  Since products featuring Bluetooth technology operate on radio frequencies, walls, handbags, clothes pockets and other obstacles don't get in the way of transmissions, enabling a level and ease of connectivity with an enormous upside.

Three additional advantages of Bluetooth wireless technology are its ease of use, security, and immense versatility, all of which make it fit for a variety of different applications.

• Easy and efficient to use
  Setting up and configuring Bluetooth enabled devices is fairly straightforward, with little more to do than get the two devices near each other and turn them on. There is no need to install drivers or other software to set up an ad-hoc, personal wireless network. It has a uniform structure, meaning that any two wireless products featuring Bluetooth technology, regardless of brand or country of origin, have the capability to communicate seamlessly with one another.

• Safe, secure connections: Hopping and pairing
  Identity and information theft is pervasive these days, and wireless security continues to be a primary concern for consumers. Bluetooth has built-in security, unlike Wi-Fi where security is the responsibility of the network administrator. Bluetooth uses adaptive frequency hopping (AFH), "hopping" between the allotted 79 frequencies 1,600 times per second, making it extremely difficult to intercept transmissions.

  Before devices can communicate, they must be "paired" with one another, establishing a unique, synchronized frequency-hopping pattern for their network (called a piconet). You can think of piconets as invisible cables; when devices are paired, they are "plugged into" one another, and when they're unpaired, they're not. Typically, users have to enter a numerical passkey to pair devices, though some devices come synchronized right out of the box.

• Versatility leads to interoperability
  Using Bluetooth, users can synchronize contacts between a cell phone, PDA, and laptop, talk on the phone while it remains in their pocket, print documents wirelessly, share photographs with friends in separate rooms, and do a host of other convenient things. Bluetooth is the most widely supported wireless standard in the world today, and best of all, there are no membership fees or services to sign up for — all you need are Bluetooth enabled devices.

Some other advantages of Bluetooth are the fact that up to eight devices are able to connect simultaneously to the same piconet, and that it has very low power consumption. The ability to exchange information across devices gives Bluetooth technology great potential, but it has some limitations that must be addressed as well.

Limitations of Bluetooth wireless technology

There are two main limitations of the current Bluetooth wireless standard: its slow transfer rate and susceptibility to interference. Each of these issues is being addressed, however, and should be mitigated upon the release of future versions. For now though, these are the potential drawbacks facing the technology.

• Slow transfer rate
  Currently, products featuring Bluetooth transfer data at about 3 megabytes (375 kilobytes) per second. To put that speed in perspective, a standard-quality, 8-megapixel photograph (4.1 megabytes) would take about 11 seconds to transfer via Bluetooth — much slower than Wi-Fi, USB or FireWire. This slow rate is only apparent when very large files are being sent; everyday tasks, such as synchronizing contacts or talking on a wireless headset, tend to work fine.

• Susceptibility to interference
  All Bluetooth enabled devices operate within the 2.4 GHz band, which is the same unlicensed frequency used by many other electronic devices such as microwaves, cordless phones, and the majority of Wi-Fi devices. This frequency sharing could lead to slower overall network performance because some of the signals collide, don't reach their destination, and have to be re-sent. However, since Bluetooth wireless transmissions "hop" all over the bandwidth, this greatly decreases the likelihood of impacting other 2.4 GHz broadcasts. Though the impact is usually negligible, there are situations that can arise where Bluetooth devices can dilute Wi-Fi signals, especially if there are a great number of devices operating in different pairs.

The Bluetooth SIG is making every effort to ensure that both of these issues will be soon be negated by the new standard.

Common Applications

As we mentioned in the beginning of this article, one of the most common applications of Bluetooth is hands-free cell phone operation. Almost every cell phone produced today has built-in Bluetooth. Just pair your phone with a Bluetooth headset, and you can talk while your phone is in your pocket or purse. Many of today's car stereos also have built-in Bluetooth for hands-free calling in your vehicle. And if your vehicle has a factory stereo or an older aftermarket one that you simply don't want to replace, you can still enjoy hands-free calling with a Bluetooth car kit.

Wireless music streaming

The latest generation of Apple's iPod touch® sports built-in Bluetooth. Add a pair of Bluetooth headphones to listen to your iPod up to 30 feet away. You can also stream music to a Bluetooth enabled car stereo or iPod dock or speaker system without the hassle of wires.

Computer peripherals

Ever use a wireless keyboard or mouse? Then you've already experienced Bluetooth in action. Some wireless printers also use Bluetooth.

Experience Icons

The Experience Icon Program is an effort to highlight the many uses of Bluetooth. Each Bluetooth device has an Experience Icon (or multiple icons) on its package, representing the various ways in which the device utilizes Bluetooth technology. There are currently five different icons (Print, Input, Headset, Transfer, and Music), with more icons planned as the technology continues to develop.

Bluetooth Experience Icons help to educate consumers on the functionality of Bluetooth enabled devices.

The future of Bluetooth

It is estimated that there are more than one billion devices in use that utilize Bluetooth wireless technology. You can expect that number to rise sharply when Bluetooth 3.0 devices become more common.

Bluetooth 3.0

Bluetooth 3.0 is the new Bluetooth wireless standard adopted by the Bluetooth SIG on April 21, 2009. The new standard supports higher data transfer speeds and builds upon the previous standards. With its higher speed, the technology has the potential to revolutionize the consumer electronics industry.

• It's FAST
  Bluetooth 3.0 can transfer files at rates of up to 24 megabytes per second. At those speeds, high-quality streaming video is a definite possibility, along with a host of other applications that are simply impractical with the current transfer rates.

• Picture this...
  With Bluetooth 3.0, camcorders will stream video footage or still photos to Bluetooth enabled televisions and computers; digital cameras will stream photo slideshows to cell phones, and laptops will have the ability to transfer presentations wirelessly to a projector. Use your imagination — the possibilities are really exciting.

• Backwards compatibility
  Best of all, Bluetooth 3.0 will be backwards-compatible, so all of your old devices will be able to communicate with the new ones and vice versa. But bear in mind that transfer speeds are only as fast as the slowest device, meaning that the two will exchange data at the slower, 3-megabyte rate of Bluetooth 2.1.

Bluetooth wireless technology has made some major strides in the past few years, and the new 3.0 standard has the potential to remove not only the wires, but the communication barriers between devices that have existed for years as well.

Be sure to check Crutchfield.com for updates and information on Bluetooth wireless technology and other state-of-the-art technology — we'll keep you posted.

For more information about Bluetooth wireless technology, visit the Official Bluetooth Wireless Info Site.

The Bluetooth word mark and logos are owned by the Bluetooth SIG, Inc. and any use of such marks by Crutchfield Corporation is under license. Other trademarks and trade names are those of their respective owners.