Stacy Drake Bluetooth Vs. Wi-Fi

What is Bluetooth?

Bluetooth is define as a specification for the use of low-power radio communications to wirelessly link phones, computers and other network devices over short distances. Bluetooth technology was designed primarily to support simple wireless networking of personal consumer devices and peripherals, including cell phones, PDAs, and wireless headsets. Wireless signals transmitted with Bluetooth cover short distances, typically up to 30 feet (10 meters). Bluetooth devices generally communicate at less than A1 Mbps. Although the Bluetooth standard utilizes the same 2.4 Ghz range as b and g, Bluetooth technology is not a suitable Wi-Fi replacement. Compared to Wi-Fi Bluetooth is much slower.

What is Wi-Fi?

Wi-Fi (short for “wireless fidelity”) a local area network that uses high frequency radio signals to transmit and receive data over distances of a few hundred feet; uses ethernet protocol. Using IEEE

What’s the difference? Bluetooth and Wi-Fi are both wireless networking standards that provide connectivity via radio waves. The main difference: Bluetooth's primary use is to replace cables, while Wi-Fi is largely used to provide wireless, high-speed access to the Internet or a local area network.

Interferences issues Interference issues between Bluetooth and Wi-Fi technology are, both occupy a section of the 2.4 GHz ISM band that is 83 MHz- wide. Bluetooth uses Frequency Hopping Spread Spectrum (FHSS) and is allowed to hop between 79 different 1 MHz-wide channels in this band. Wi-Fi uses Direct Sequence Spread Spectrum (DSSS) instead of FHSS. Its carrier does not hop or change frequency and remains centered on one channel that is 22 MHz-wide.

Interferences issues Cont’d While there is room for 11 overlapping channels in this 83 MHz-wide band, there is only room for three non-overlapping channels. Thus there can be no more than three different Wi-Fi networks operating in close proximity to one another. When a Bluetooth radio and a Wi-Fi radio are operating in the same area, the single 22 MHz-wide Wi-Fi channel occupies the same frequency space as 22 of the 79 Bluetooth channels which are 1 MHz wide. When a Bluetooth transmission occurs on a frequency that lies within the frequency space occupied by a simultaneous Wi-Fi transmission, some level of interference can occur, depending on the strength of each signal.

When a Bluetooth device encounters interference on a channel, it deals with the problem by hopping to the next channel and trying again. In this manner it can attempt to avoid interference from a Wi-Fi network. Wi-Fi acts like a wireless Ethernet™, and it deals with interference like Ethernet does.