What is Bluetooth anyway?
Bluetooth is a standardized radio standard that enables wireless data transfer between several devices at short distances. Already in the 1990s, essential parts of this radio technology were developed for the Swedish technology company Ericsson. Other parts were later added by Nokia and Intel.
The name Bluetooth refers to the Danish king Harald Blatant (German: Blauzahn, English: Bluetooth), who once united large parts of Denmark and Norway. Thus also the Bluetooth radio technology is to bring the digital world more simply together and to replace different kinds of connections. The Bluetooth logo shows a monogram of the old Norse runes for H and B in honor of the king.
How does Bluetooth work?
Bluetooth transmits and receives radio waves in a frequency band of 79 different channels between a bandwidth of 2.4 and 2.480 GHz. If two devices want to connect to each other via Bluetooth, they take one of these channels at random. If this is however already occupied, they jump over simply to the next free channel frequency.
This frequency hopping procedure is also called Frequency Hopping Spread Spectrum (FHSS). To minimize the risk of interference from other signals (such as WLAN or microwaves etc.), paired Bluetooth devices jump back and forth between the channels almost 1600 times per second.
Bluetooth audio adapter automatically recognizes each other and up to eight devices can be connected simultaneously. During a Bluetooth connection, the devices form an ad-hoc mini network, a so-called piconet. As long as there is space, devices can join or leave this piconet at any time.
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Did you know that the name ‘Bluetooth’ comes from the Danish King Harald ‘Blauzahn’ Gormsson?
Harald Gromsson was known for two Dine: he united the Danish and Norwegian kingdom on the one hand, and on the other hand, had a dead blue to a grey tooth that earned him the nickname ‘Blue Tooth’. One device acts as a controller (master), while the other devices bend to his commands (slaves).
In devices with Bluetooth, a chip with a transmitter and receiver unit is built-in. Each device has a unique 48-bit serial number so that it can be uniquely identified within a Bluetooth network. To establish an optimal connection, you should ideally have the latest Bluetooth version. But don’t worry! As a rule, new Bluetooth versions are always backward compatible.
What does SIG mean?
The Bluetooth Special Interest Group (SIG) is a community of interests consisting of over 30,000 companies with the goal of promoting the further development and distribution of Bluetooth technology. Bluetooth SIG is the owner of the Bluetooth trademark and publisher of the Bluetooth specifications.
It was founded in 1998 by Ericsson, IBM, Intel, Nokia, and Toshiba. Today, technology giants such as Apple, Microsoft, Intel, Ericsson, Lenovo, Nokia, and Toshiba are among its biggest promoters.
What is the difference between adapter and dongle?
There is none!
The terms adapter and dongle can be understood as synonyms in relation to Bluetooth.
Originally, the term “dongle” actually meant copy protection plugs like hard locks and hardware keys. In the meantime, colloquially, mainly a plug that remains in a USB interface for a longer period of time is called a dongle. But not only Bluetooth adapters, but also WLAN adapters or USB memory sticks can be called dongle synonymously.
Which alternative to Bluetooth adapters are there?
The only alternative is to buy a new device with a built-in Bluetooth chip. Wireless is in and technical multitasking in the future, so most technology manufacturers are optimizing their new devices more and more for wireless use. There are hardly any electronic devices without Bluetooth options on the market today.
Of course, buying a completely new device is not always the cheapest option, which is why you can easily upgrade your old favorite devices with a Bluetooth adapter.