What is Bluetooth Technology?

Attend Bluetooth Training and Learn more about Bluetooth

During the Bluetooth Training, learn about Bluetooth technology, a short range wireless communications system connecting many different types of devices, such as mobile phones, headsets, heart monitors, medical equipment and many other smart devices.

Fast Facts on Bluetooth

Unlike other wireless standards, the Bluetooth Core Specification provides product developers both link layer and application layer definitions, which support data and voice applications.

Spectrum

Bluetooth technology operates in the unlicensed industrial, scientific and medical (ISM) band at 2.4 to 2.485 GHz, using a spread spectrum, frequency hopping, full-duplex signal at a nominal rate of 1600 hops/sec. The 2.4 GHz ISM band is available and unlicensed in most countries  Interference
Bluetooth technology's adaptive frequency hopping (AFH) capability was designed to reduce interference between wireless technologies sharing the 2.4 GHz spectrum. AFH works within the spectrum to take advantage of the available frequency.

This is done by the technology detecting other devices in the spectrum and avoiding the frequencies they are using. This adaptive hopping among 79 frequencies at 1 MHz intervals gives a high degree of interference immunity and also allows for more efficient transmission within the spectrum.
For users of Bluetooth technology this hopping provides greater performance even when other technologies are being used along with Bluetooth technology.

Range

Range is application specific and although a minimum range is mandated by the Core Specification, there is not a limit and manufacturers can tune their implementation to support the use case they are enabling.
Range may vary depending on class of radio used in an implementation:

• Class 3 radios – have a range of up to 1 meter or 3 feet
• Class 2 radios – most commonly found in mobile devices – have a range of 10 meters or 33 feet
• Class 1 radios – used primarily in industrial use cases – have a range of 100 meters or 300 feet

Bluetooth Power

The most commonly used radio is Class 2 and uses 2.5 mW of power. Bluetooth technology is designed to have very low power consumption. This is reinforced in the specification by allowing radios to be powered down when inactive.

The Generic Alternate MAC/PHY in Version 3.0 HS enables the discovery of remote AMPs for high speed devices and turns on the radio only when needed for data transfer giving a power optimization benefit as well as aiding in the security of the radios.

Bluetooth low energy technology, optimized for devices requiring maximum battery life instead of a high data transfer rate, consumes between 1/2 and 1/100 the power of classic Bluetooth technology.

Bluetooth Vulnerabilities

Bluetooth Vulnerabilities and Bluetooth Security Mechanisms

Bluetooth is a peer-to-peer network and communication technology and usually lacks centralized administration, security policy and security enforcement infrastructure. 

Bluetooth can be susceptible to a diverse set of security vulnerabilities including identity detection, location tracking, denial of service, unintended control and access of data and voice channels, and unauthorized device control and data access. 

Do you want to learn more about Bluetooth and Bluetooth Security?

Bluetooth Security

Is Bluetooth Secured? What are the Vulnerabilities in Bluetooth?

 Bluetooth introduces a number of potentially serious security vulnerabilities.  

Bluetooth uses optional pre-shared key authentication and encryption algorithms that are  considered strong when both implemented and used correctly. 

The strength of Bluetooth security relies primarily on the length and randomness of the passkey used for Bluetooth pairing, during which devices mutually authenticate each other for the first time and set up a link key for later authentication and encryption.  

Bluetooth is by design a peer-to-peer network technology and typically lacks centralized administration and security enforcement infrastructure.