Overpoints about bluetooth wireless connection

Bluetooth has long been a popular short-range wireless connection standard equipped on most devices such as Smartphones, speakers, headphones, music players.

Appeared for more than 20 years, Bluetooth is now equipped on many devices from smartphones, tablets, laptops, headphones, speakers, TVs to game console systems, etc. Companies like to use Bluetooth because it can do a lot of things: transfer data from one device to another and play audio from smartphones and tablets to different sound systems.

Due to its popularity, Bluetooth is often improved in connectivity and transmission speed to match modern and advanced technology. However, there are still some pretty outdated stereotypes about Bluetooth that you need to get rid of right now.

1. Turning on Bluetooth a lot will drain the battery

Going back to the early days of smartphones, this was true. The device will consume a decent amount of battery because once Bluetooth is turned on, the device will always search for connections around without resting.

However, from the Bluetooth 4.0 standard onwards, this connection is equipped with an LE (Low Energy) module. This module uses a different technology to detect surrounding Bluetooth devices but does not consume as much power as the old Bluetooth standards.

Likewise, when the connection is successful, but there is nothing to transmit, Bluetooth LE does not consume energy. For example, if you connect your smartphone to a wireless speaker or headset with Bluetooth LE, the device will not use power when no music is playing.

Specifically, Bluetooth LE’s power consumption has been optimized to be reduced to half (or even more) than the older generation Bluetooth. An old Bluetooth speaker can consume up to 1W, but with the LE standard, the above figure is only 0.01W to 0.5W.

2. Bluetooth is harmful to health

At this time, there is no definitive conclusion as to whether radiation from your phone is harmful to your health. However, the amount of radiation emitted is equivalent to the energy consumed, and a Bluetooth Class 1 device has a maximum capacity of 100mW, but in reality, it rarely reaches that level. Most Bluetooth devices have a capacity of 1mW. Whereas most conventional phones operate at the power from 1000mW to 2000mW when using 3G or 4G.

Therefore, it is not possible to say whether Bluetooth is completely safe or completely harmful, but using a Bluetooth headset is better than being directly exposed to radiation waves when listening to the phone. You can’t escape being stuck with your smartphone every day, but if you are a person who is cautious about your health and radiation, you should buy a Bluetooth headset right away.

3. Bluetooth is only used in small rooms

Granted, Bluetooth is a “short-range” wireless connection standard, but it is divided into three different sub-standards corresponding to different connectivity:

– Bluetooth Class 3 has a connection range of fewer than 10 meters

– Bluetooth Class 2 has a connection range of about 10 meters

– Bluetooth Class 1 has a connection range of about 100 meters

Most Bluetooth Class 1 devices require power when in use or require significant battery power. Most mobile devices today use Bluetooth Class 2 or Class 3. However, 10 meters is only a theoretical number, and in practice, if there are no barriers, the connection range can be longer.

4. “Hide yourself” is safe

Don’t think that keeping the mode from being found by other Bluetooth devices will keep your device safe. The Bluetooth Device Address (BDA) can be hidden in undetectable mode, but scanners or sniffer tools can still find and infiltrate your BDA address even if it has been hidden.

The most important key of this hack is that the default Bluetooth connection password on most devices is usually 0000 or 1234. So anyone can connect to your Bluetooth device if they have the address BDA only.

That is also why most users are eavesdropped on or bluejacking (temporarily understood as harassment through Bluetooth messages). So, the first thing you need to do right now is immediately changing the Bluetooth connection PIN on your device to a different number. If you don’t use Bluetooth often, turn it off and only turn it on when necessary.

5. Bluetooth interferes with Wi-Fi

Like most other wireless connection standards, Bluetooth uses the 2.4GHz band to send and receive data. That is also the frequency used by most devices that transmit and receive Wi-Fi signals today.

You will probably think that Bluetooth will affect the speed and connectivity of Wi-Fi because it uses the same frequency band. However, that is only true for older Bluetooth devices.

The Adaptive Frequency Hopping mechanism has been greatly improved on Bluetooth 4.0 to reduce Bluetooth’s ability to interfere with Wi-Fi waves. The 2.4GHz band has transmission frequencies from 2400MHz to 2483.5MHz. Bluetooth uses two channels, each tracking 50% of the frequency of the 2.4GHz band. The Bluetooth signal will quickly switch to a different frequency if the frequency in use is being used or is trying to be used by another device, so you don’t have to worry about Bluetooth affecting the Wi-Fi connection in the house.