THE TOOTH SHALL SET YOU FREE

Darien Graham-Smith explores the Bluetooth standard, and finds out how to get the best audio quality from your wireless headphones

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BLUETOOTH has become so commonplace that you probably used it today without even thinking, but it’s a technology that is worthy of deeper consideration. For a start, it’s unique. Similar to Wi-Fi in some ways, but with a different topology and a shorter range, intended for “personalarea networking” (PAN), rather than a whole-home LAN. In case you’d wondered, “Bluetooth” was originally the colorful nickname of Harald Gormsson, king of Denmark in the 10th century. The connection between short-range networking and the Danish monarchy isn’t obvious, but the ostensible explanation is that Gormsson united the tribes of Denmark into a single kingdom, and Bluetooth similarly brings a whole range of networking protocols into one standard.

If that sounds like a stretch, it may also have helped that Gormsson’s initials were written as a neat rune that looks like an angular B with a pair of antennae sticking out the side—which became the official Bluetooth logo.

WHO INVENTED BLUETOOTH? Bluetooth was dreamt up in 1989 at Ericsson Mobile in Sweden, then one of the biggest names in the fast-growing mobile phone industry. CTO Nils Rydbeck had a vision of people talking on handsfree wireless headsets, without having to take their phones out of their pockets, and he tasked company engineers with making it a reality.

By 1997, Ericsson had a simple shortrange radio system working in its labs, and with dial-up internet access growing in popularity, IBM happened to be seeking a way to use mobile phones as portable modems for its ThinkPad laptops. IBM and Ericsson agreed to build it together on the nascent Bluetooth platform, and opened up the standard to encourage other companies to get involved in its development. Intel, Nokia, and Toshiba came on board, with the five companies forming the Bluetooth Special Interest Group (SIG).

Since then, Apple and Microsoft have also joined as major contributors, while IBM—having departed the laptop business—has been replaced by Lenovo. More than 35,000 technology companies around the world now participate in the development and certification of new Bluetooth standards.