singleantler's Journal: Bluetooth

I see a lot of posts on Slashdot saying that Bluetooth (BT) is useless as a technology, or that it's going to be super-ceded by low-power wifi. Then, I look around real life at my own kit and what friends use or are waiting to buy and see Bluetooth is doing well.

Personally, I use a BT to let my laptop dial up through my mobile (cell) phone when I'm away from land connections, and to send the odd text message when I can't be bothered to type them with predictive text. Two friends use theirs for pretty much the same thing, another for backing up his address book, as well as the same as me in an emergency. I've also used mine as a quick networking tool between my and a friend's laptops.

Then there's my old boss, who has a Bluetooth headset so he can drive and talk on the phone easily (and now due to new laws in the UK, avoid being arrested.) Another friend has just got a BT adaptor for his PC so he can use a headset with Skype

All of these are things that previously needed cables of various types and became more complicated in that some of the computers concerned are PCs and some are Macs, and the phones concerned are various brands. Now, it's all very easy, and all because of a low-power, low-cost, well designed system. I'm sure something will replace Bluetooth eventually, but I don't think it's going to be for a while yet. Bluetooth has got to the 'it just works' stage, and that means it's more useful than it ever was when it was hyped.