Bluetooth Released on 20.05.1999

The name Bluetooth

The name of the Bluetooth standard originates from the Danish king Harald Blåtand who was king of Denmark between 940 and 981 AD. His name translates as "Blue Tooth" and this was used as his nickname. A brave warrior, his main achievement was that of uniting Denmark under the banner of Christianity, and then uniting it with Norway that he had conquered. The Bluetooth standard was named after him because Bluetooth endeavours to unite personal computing and telecommunications devices.

Bluetooth standard releases

There have been many releases of the Bluetooth standard as updates have been made to ensure it keeps pace with the current technology and the needs of the users.

BLUETOOTH STANDARD VERSION	RELEASE DATE	KEY FEATURES OF VERSION
1.0	July 1999	Draft version of the Bluetooth standard
1.0a	July 1999	First published version of the Bluetooth standard
1.0b	Dec 1999	Small updates to cure minor problems and issues
1.0b + CE	Nov 2000	Critical Errata added to issue 1.0b of the Bluetooth standard
1.1	February 2001	First useable release. It was used by the IEEE for their standard IEEE 802.15.1 - 2002.
1.2	Nov 2003	This release of the Bluetooth standard added new facilities including frequency hopping and eSCO for improved voice performance. Was released by the IEEE as IEEE 802.15.1 - 2005. This was the last version issued by IEEE.
2.0 + EDR	Nov 2004	This version of the Bluetooth standard added the enhanced data rate (EDR) to increase the throughput to 3.0 Mbps raw data rate.
2.1	July 2007	This version of the Bluetooth standard added secure simple pairing to improve security.
3.0 + HS	Apr 2009	Bluetooth 3 added IEEE 802.11 as a high speed channel to increase the data rate to 10+ Mbps
4.0	Dec 2009	The Bluetooth standard was updated to include Bluetooth Low Energy formerly known as Wibree

Bluetooth basics

The first release of Bluetooth was for a wireless data system that could carry data at speeds up to 721 Kbps with the addition of up to three voice channels. The aim of Bluetooth technology was to enable users to replace cables between devices such as printers, fax machines, desktop computers and peripherals, and a host of other digital devices. One major use was for wirelessly connecting headsets for to mobile phones, allowing people to use small headsets rather than having to speak directly into the phone.

Another application of Bluetooth technology was to provide a connection between an ad hoc wireless network and existing wired data networks.

The technology was intended to be placed in a low cost module that could be easily incorporated into electronics devices of all sorts. Bluetooth uses the licence free Industrial, Scientific and Medical (ISM) frequency band for its radio signals and enables communications to be established between devices up to a maximum distance of around 100 metres, although much shorter distances were more normal..

Bluetooth is well established, but despite this further enhancements are being introduced. Faster data transfer rates, and greater flexibility. In addition to this efforts have been made to ensure that interoperation has been improved so that devices from different manufacturers can talk together more easily.

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