BLUETOOTH - Famous Wireless Technology

BLUETOOTH

      Now a days, every mobiles,computers in fact every electronics products released. latest version of Bluetooth is v4.0 which is used in latest smart phones and other devices. Now will see the some information about Bluetooth and its versions

     A wireless technology used for exchanging data over short distances, creating Personal Area Network(PAN) using Short wavelength radio transmission(2400-2483 MHz) ie. Microwave radio frequency This technology was first created by ERICSSON in 1994 as a alternative for RS 232 data cables.

    Bluetooth is managed by the Bluetooth Special Interest Group consists of many thousands members from various telecommunication companies. It was standardized as as IEEE 802.15.1, but now it is not maintained. In order to manages the qualification, protects the trademarks Bluetooth device must qualify to standards defined by SIG.

       Bluetooth uses a radio technology called frequency-hopping spread spectrum. The transmitted data is divided into packets and each packet is transmitted on one of the 79 designated Bluetooth channels. Each channel has a bandwidth of 1 MHz. The first channel starts at 2402 MHz and continues up to 2480 MHz in 1 MHz steps. It usually performs 1600 hops per second.

  Initially Gaussian frequency-shift keying (GFSK) modulation was the only modulation scheme available; subsequently, since the introduction of Bluetooth 2.0+EDR, π/4-DQPSK and 8DPSK modulation may also be used between compatible devices. Devices functioning with GFSK are said to be operating in basic rate (BR) mode where an instantaneous data rate of 1 Mbit/s is possible. The term Enhanced Data Rate (EDR) is used to describe π/4-DPSK and 8DPSK schemes, each giving 2 and 3 Mbit/s respectively. The combination of these (BR and EDR) modes in Bluetooth radio technology is classified as a "BR/EDR radio".

       Bluetooth is a master-slave structure, One master may communicate with up to 7 slaves at a same time. in order to use Bluetooth wireless technology, a device has to be able to interpret certain Bluetooth profiles, which are definitions of possible applications and specify general behaviors that Bluetooth enabled devices use to communicate with other Bluetooth devices. These profiles include settings to parametrize and to control the communication from start. Adherence to profiles saves the time for transmitting the parameters anew before the bi-directional link becomes effective. There are a wide range of Bluetooth profiles that describe many different types of applications or use cases for devices.

       At first Jacobson and Wetzel from Bell Laboratories discovered flaws in the Bluetooth pairing protocol and also pointed to vulnerabilities in the encryption scheme in 2001.

Version 4.0

    

     Latest bluetooth version consumes very low power than previous versions achieves its reduced power consumption by enabling devices to remain paired, or connected to each other, without requiring a continual stream of data to be transferred between the devices. It includes Classic Bluetooth, Bluetooth high speed and Bluetooth low energy protocols. Bluetooth high speed is based on Wi-Fi, and Classic Bluetooth consists of legacy Bluetooth protocols. This version achieves its reduced power consumption by enabling devices to remain paired, or connected to each other, without requiring a continual stream of data to be transferred between the devices.

          It  was announced in late 2010.  In late 2011, new logos “Bluetooth Smart Ready” for hosts and “Bluetooth Smart” for sensors were introduced as the general-public face of BLE it was first appeared in Apple's 2012 releases of the MacBook Air and MacBook Mini. The first smartphone to utilize the new Bluetooth 4 technology was Apple’s iPhone 4S. Bluetooth 4.0 is also expected to play a key role in the development of advanced, long-lasting wearable computing devices like smart watches and fitness monitoring devices.

          General improvements in version 4.0 include the changes necessary to facilitate BLE modes, as well the Generic Attribute Profile (GATT) and Security Manager (SM) services with AES Encryption.

        As per the quote "Technology development cannot be stopped" this technology is also improving day by day, we can expect next versions with high security and other functions.