Friday, November 11, 2011

Bluetooth 4.0


Bluetooth isn't a topic that people talk about in general. It WAS a high-end feature 4 years ago when phones with Bluetooth were looked at like they were gods. Now, it's just there, even though you have wi-fi to sync files over.

Most devices carry a Bluetooth 2.0 chip. There have been some devices that had a Bluetooth 3.0 chip built-in, and when those were launched, people started to babble about it, whether they know what they're saying or not. But that's over, since Bluetooth 4.0 is to take place from now on -- or so we should consider, given the following...

Bluetooth 4.0 was first announced in April 2010 (more than one year ago, so why don't all devices since then carry the chip?) and expands wireless abilities to many different types of devices. If only your laptop and phone had Bluetooth until now, even wristwatches (or anything that includes a battery, basically) can have that wireless ability with Bluetooth 4.0. Because the low-power Bluetooth 4.0 consumes less current, devices that previously had to send data only when manually connected can now do that over the air -- given the other device is a Bluetooth 4.0-compatible one.

Bluetooth 4.0's specifications are said to be :
- Effective range: up to 100 m
- Ping of ~3 ms
- Up to 25 Mbps
- 2.4 GHz radio frequency range
- Frequency hopping to minimize interference
- AES 128 encryption
- Bluetooth 2.0 backwards compatible

So far, the only PHONES to have Bluetooth 4.0 are the iPhone 4S and the upcoming Motorola Droid RAZR, which, by looking at the specs, should cause a lot of fuss (the battery and the chipset are the main things that drawed my eyes).

Technology is advancing at such a high rate... Soon, connectivity solutions will consume next to nothing -- guess that's when we'll have air batteries, since air = basically nothing... except for some specific compounds, haha.

Anyway, I am happy with my Bluetooth 2.0 phone so far. I don't really use it so much everyday, but when I do (for transfering large image files, for example), I'm pleased with the (higher-than-expected) transfer speed. My previous phone, which also had Bluetooth 2.0, transfered files much slower - it had half the power of the current phone's CPU, too, so... CPU matters the most, I believe (at least when it comes to speed).

8 comments:

  1. same here .. i remember infrared.. XD
    but i miss using Bluetooth too.

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  2. same i just dont use it to much i think there are better ways haha XD

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  3. I'm buying a wireless headphone which works on bluetooth. Maybe those devices use the 4.0 for low battery consumption.

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  4. Hmm... sounds interesting

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  5. I used to love my blue tooth back in the day

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  6. its all about the iphone 4s! but yeh, 4.0 looks great. i use bluetooth in some of the robotics i do, 4.0 will be a massive help!

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