Personal Wireless = Bluetooth

Did you know that you can connect to many of your computer gadgets through wireless technology? This goes for your PDA, your mobile phone, mp3 player and just about anything else.

PAN: Your Gold Mine

PAN, or Personal Area Network is the method of using wireless networking with your gadgets. The goal of the future is to have a wireless system for just about everything. You would just need to put any Bluetooth device close to the computer and your computer can use it.

Bluetooth: What Makes It Work?

Bluetooth has been around since 1999. It was designed to be both cheap and easy to use.

Class 1 has a range of 320 feet. Class 2 is the more popular and cheaper alternative, with a range of only 32 feet.

Although Bluetooth has a shorter range than standard wireless networking, it is more flexible to use. If your computer is Bluetooth enabled, it has a receiver within it that can be used with up to 7 nearby Bluetooth devices. Wireless devices don’t need to have Bluetooth installed if the support  is already integrated.

Bluetooth works by radio signals that create bandwidth. It's not the same as wireless mouse or keyboard technology though, which need a receiver plugged into one of the ports. These products also do not have the range and stability of that range as Bluetooth does.

Apple Macs are the most common computers to have Bluetooth installed, but more and more computers are having the technology installed. To add this feature to a computer that doesn’t have it, you need to use an external Bluetooth adapter or you can have it installed internally.

Why Have It?

You can use it for anything that would normally need a USB to access your computer. For example, many mobile phones are having this technology installed in them. PDA’s are also available. Digital cameras, MP3 players, printers, and your keyword or mouse can be linked in. In theory, Bluetooth can be used for cordless phones, headsets, faxes, videos.

Bluetooth is a replacement for the USB. Like wireless networking is the wireless Ethernet, Bluetooth is the wireless USB.

More Than For Computers Too

Bluetooth is more than just for computers. It can link any devices that are both Bluetooth enabled and that recognize each other. For example, the mobile phone is the prime selection here. Hands free headsets can use Bluetooth to communicate with the phone. Some cars have on board computers that will connect to the Bluetooth phone and allow you to make calls hands free no matter where the phone actually is.

Bluetooth devices can communicate with each other. For example, people can send messages to their Bluetooth PDAs to others that are in close range, called bluejacking. This then has lead to the use of bluecasting in which mobile phones with Bluetooth can get messages that are advertising products. Many think it is cool, others quite annoying.