What is Bluetooth? How does it work? – Simply explained

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The Bluetooth wireless standard is used in smartphones, laptops, and game consoles, for example.

What is Bluetooth?
Bluetooth is a wireless standard similar to WLAN but mainly designed for short distances. This means that no connection cables are required. You simply activate the Bluetooth function on both devices to connect them wirelessly. Unlike WLAN, no router is required—the connection is established directly between the devices (Bluetooth pairing).

Examples of Bluetooth – where is it used?
・Playing music from a cell phone via Bluetooth on the car radio.

・Connecting a smartphone to wireless Bluetooth headphones via Bluetooth.

・Connect a Bluetooth mouse and keyboard wirelessly to a PC/laptop.

Bluetooth is built into smartphones, smartwatches, laptops, modern car radios, Bluetooth speakers, and headphones.

Versions & compatibility
Bluetooth 6.0 has not yet been released. The most important new features are said to include the following two functions:

・More precise distance measurement between two Bluetooth 6.0 devices (Bluetooth Channel Sounding).

・Lower latency for audio applications through improved ISOAL layer (Isochronous Adaptation Layer).

Bluetooth 5.2 has the following important new features:

・Multiple simultaneous connections are supported with more efficient data transmission (EATT – Enhanced Attribute Transport Protocol).
・Better audio quality thanks to LC3 codec.

・Audio transmission to an unlimited number of recipients (broadcast audio).

・Faster connections through intermediate storage of attribute information (GATT caching).

Bluetooth 5.0 has the following improvements compared to Bluetooth 4.2:

・Doubled transmission rate (at 2 Mbit/s).

・Four times the range.

・Eight times the capacity for broadcast messages.

・More energy is efficient with less interference.

However, in principle, all Bluetooth versions are compatible, although certain functions may only be usable with a specific version.

How does Bluetooth work?
The procedure for connecting two Bluetooth devices is always similar. Let’s say you want to connect your smartphone to a Bluetooth speaker:

・1. Pull down the top status bar on Android devices and activate the Bluetooth icon. On iPhones, open the settings and tap “Bluetooth” to activate the function.

・2 You usually have to press a specific button on your Bluetooth speaker to activate Bluetooth.

・3. Your smartphone will then show which Bluetooth devices it has found nearby. Select the speaker.

・4. Sometimes, you must enter a confirmation code on one device to allow the Bluetooth connection. This code will be displayed on the other device. So you just have to copy it.

How does it work technically?
・Bluetooth devices have a built-in chip that can send and receive Bluetooth signals.

・Each Bluetooth device has a unique 48-bit serial number that it sends to the outside world when Bluetooth is activated.

・Other Bluetooth devices intercept the serial number and connect if the user confirms this.