Bluetooth: the separation anxiety protocol

These are good times for people who don’t like wires. Almost every new device now features WiFi (802.11) or Bluetooth connectivity. Phone headsets, cameras, watches, printers, speakers... you name it. Terrific, you say.

Well, terrific in principle but not so great in reality. The thing is, you don’t have a wire but you are still chained to the spot.

Let me tell you about my Bluetooth speaker. I can send music from my phone to the speaker across the room wirelessly, and it sounds fine. Then my phone and I leave the room for a few seconds and the music starts freaking out. The published range is supposed to be around 30 feet, but in reality it is more like 15. It may work from 30 feet in a large, bare airplane hangar near the equator but in the real world there are walls and tables and curtains and dogs and sunspot activity, and Bluetooth doesn’t like any of these things.

What I don’t get is this: if you’re going to spend zillions of dollars designing gizmos around a wireless protocol, wouldn’t you want to make sure that the damn thing is a bit more robust and doesn’t start having meltdowns the moment you are out of sight?

Another fine example of coolness trumping sense.

And another thing—hell hath no fury like a Bluetooth device scorned. Once I accidentally pressed the Forget this Device button on my phone. Realising I had made a mistake, I tried to get the phone to recognise the device somehow. A couple of boots and resets later it sinks in that it is almost impossible to un-forget. It is as though the phone has been crudely lobotomized. You said forget this device? Ok! What device?

And now time for a random quiz. The name Bluetooth comes from:

a)      The British company that first brought a Bluetooth device successfully on the market.

b)      The tenth-century king Harald Bluetooth who united dissonant Danish tribes into a single kingdom.

c)      The fact that the early headsets had an LED microphone that made the user’s teeth look bluish.

Any thoughts? Well, here’s a hint: the least likely answer is actually the correct one.

And the Bluetooth logo? Surprisingly not inspired by Madonna’s bra, it is, instead, a bind rune representation of the characters H & B in Old Norse script.

So now you’ve learnt something and this whole pointless piece wasn’t a complete waste of time.

Oh who am I kidding? It was.