The More You Know! An Informative Guide on How Bluetooth Works

If you have connected devices, odds are they work with Bluetooth. You can connect your phone to your car, your headset to your computer, and a keyboard to a tablet.

You can do just about anything you can imagine with your devices, even take your favorite music into the backyard without having to connect a bunch of wires.

It’s not through magic. It’s through a radio protocol that we know as Bluetooth. Would you like to know more about Bluetooth?

Read on to discover how Bluetooth works and what it is.

What is Bluetooth?

The technology we know as Bluetooth was first created in 1994. It was invented by a researcher at Swedish telecom giant Ericsson. It was named Bluetooth after the Viking king from the 10th century.

In 1998, other leading tech companies saw the value of the technology and formed the Bluetooth Special Interest Group (SIG) to standardize it. IBM, Toshiba, Nokia, Intel, and Ericsson were the main players at first.

Lenovo, Microsoft, and Apple joined the group over the years.

That special interest group is responsible for licensing and promoting the technology. It’s largely the reason why you can connect different devices from different brands to each other.

Now, everything from headphones to phones and home devices uses Bluetooth to connect and communicate with each other. That means you can leave the wired world behind.

More devices are hitting the market every day. One company even raised more than $6 million on IndieGoGo for a set of Bluetooth headphones.

How Bluetooth Works

Bluetooth uses short-range radio waves using an RF transceiver at 2.4 GHz. That frequency may seem familiar to you because it’s the same frequency that WiFi and cordless phones use to operate.

The way it works is that there is one device that is considered the primary or master device. You can connect up to seven secondary or slave devices at the same time.

That’s why you can have a Bluetooth headset, mouse, keyboard, phone, and printer connected to your computer at the same time.

Even if you wanted to use marine Bluetooth radio in the middle of the ocean, you can do that.

The way the technology works is pretty seamless. The only time you have to interact with it is when you set it up or pair devices with each other.

The master device will send an inquiry signal to devices in the area and when you set the slave device to scan as well, their signals cross and recognize each other.

At that point, you may need to enter a code or hit OK to confirm the pairing. Once the devices are paired, they’ll recognize each other when they’re in close proximity and powered on.

Bluetooth Vs. WiFi

It’s easy to confuse the different technical terms or think that they do the same thing. That’s a common thing that occurs when people are thinking about WiFi and Bluetooth. They tend to confuse them or think that they’re one and the same.

The fact is, they’re very different from each other. Bluetooth is a way to connect devices to each other when they’re in close proximity to each other. That allows them to communicate with each other.

You can exchange files or use a device like a keyboard that appears on your tablet screen as you type. Bluetooth is widely used because it doesn’t use a lot of power and it can transfer small bits of data quickly.

If you ever tried to transfer files between your phone and your computer via Bluetooth, you may have discovered that it takes a long time.

WiFi, on the other hand, is used to download or upload large files across the internet. You can connect to a website across the world and download files from there in seconds. WiFi is an over the air technology, but the purpose is completely different.

How Secure is Bluetooth?

Like any device that’s connected to another device or to the Internet, you need to know about security risks. Hackers have successfully infiltrated government networks and even home security devices.

There’s always going to be a security risk when you use Bluetooth or any other wireless protocol. Generally speaking, the Bluetooth protocol is secure because it uses a high level of encryption.

There are other things you can do to increase the level of security of your devices. You want to make sure that your devices are set to restrict the devices it connects with.

You can also use service-level security, which dictates the types of actions a device can take when connected.

This is a good idea to prevent hackers from taking over your Bluetooth device through bluebugging. There are other threats, such as bluejacking and bluesnarfing that can compromise your devices and your most sensitive data.

The Future of Bluetooth

Bluetooth has evolved over the last 20 years. It will continue to evolve as more connected devices come out and the needs of the technology changes.

For example, a new Bluetooth protocol will be released to improve audio quality between devices. You can expect improvements as more devices start to be connected throughout the home and worn.

You can be sure that Bluetooth won’t become obsolete anytime soon.

How Does Bluetooth Work?

It seems like every device is a connected device. The way that many of these connect to each other is through a 25 year old technology named after a Viking.

Bluetooth is one of the leading technologies used to connect various devices. How Bluetooth works is that it uses low power to send small amounts of data between devices wirelessly. 

It also helps to have been backed by the major tech companies, making it easier for devices from other brands to connect to each other.

Do you want to know more about connecting Bluetooth devices? Read this article to learn how you can connect your Samsung S10 to your car audio. It’s great to play your favorite Spotify playlist from your phone right to your car.