Zendata Bluetooth Development

Zendata is a Bluetooth SIG member.

We would welcome the opportunity to assist with software and wireless expertise in Bluetooth based projects.

Varying interpretation of the the Bluetooth standards has unfortunately lead to a number of interoperability problems between vendors equipment. This has been addressed with the 802.25a/b standard, but time will tell.

Bluetooth is not the same as WiFi wireless networking (802.11b/g) which has 10 times the range and speed and only marginally higher power drain. These two systems are really designed to do different things. Bluetooth is designed to provide mobile device to device communications, without needing any device to be a PC, whilst WiFi is a localised PC-based wireless network. Bluetooth will come in to its own when your video camera talks to your phone to send streaming video straight to your web site (for example).

Zendata has tested a number of Bluetooth phones and PDAs that natively support Bluetooth and have found the additional functionality quite useful. The software worked well and met the specified range of 10 meters with the odd wall in between. Not all such Bluetooth phone stories have such happy endings though, with Nokia receiving a bit of flak for their implementation.

With a D-Link USB Bluetooth dongle plugged into one of the Apple Macs in the office our Bluetooth enabled PDAs are constantly connected to the Internet for email, synchronisation services and web services updates.

The co-location of Bluetooth and WiFi, along with the domestic microwave oven, cordless keyboards and mice, DECT phones and home entertainment video/audio links in the same spectrum (around 2.4 GHz) does raise some interference issues, but we run all these at the same location and have experienced no significant problems.

Zendata Pty Ltd - contact@zendata.com