Range on bluetooth headset

What Is The Range Of Bluetooth And How Can It Be Extended?

The range of Bluetooth depends on its class and there are three main classes of Bluetooth: Class 1 : transmits at 100 mW with a range of 100 meters. Class 2 : Most Bluetooth headsets and headphones transmit at 2.5 mW with a range of 10 meters. Class 3 : transmits with 1 mW at a range of less than 10 meters.

The range of Bluetooth depends on its class and there are three main classes of Bluetooth:

1. Class 1 : transmits at 100 mW with a range of 100 meters.
2. Class 2 : Most Bluetooth headsets and headphones transmit at 2.5 mW with a range of 10 meters.
3. Class 3 : transmits with 1 mW at a range of less than 10 meters.

Recommended Video for you:

I remember exchanging Linkin Park hits on my sliding Sony Ericsson phone with a friend. Later, I “amplified” the sound by forcing it to pass through a cone made by the palm of my hand and imitating a speaker. Before the Internet of Things revolutionized wireless communication technology, Bluetooth technology was THE thing. However, Bluetooth was not our first attempt to manipulate a device with another device without a cable; infrared has been used for some time as an alternative to data cables. Bluetooth only overcame one major disadvantage, eliminating the need to position the viewing direction. Due to this limitation, remote controls cannot change channels if they are not directed at the TV. Bluetooth seems redundant today, but not obsolete. Despite the myriad advantages and contingencies of the IoT, Bluetooth is endangered, but not extinct. It is the unsung hero of our generation who protects us from uncomfortable conversations and confrontations by powering our wireless headphones, as well as one of humanity’s most important inventions – the PlayStation (or Xbox… each to its own). I deliberately avoided However, take the joystick a little too far away and the red light goes out abruptly. There seem to be a number of distances within which two or a network of devices can comfortably communicate with each other, but as we will find out, this distance is not fixed and is limited by several factors.

Bluetooth Range

Is Bluetooth A Short-distance Technology?

There is a common misconception that although Bluetooth is not a visual connection technology, it can only work over short distances. That’s not true. No… gluing the phone sleeves together would not accelerate the speed of transmitting information between them, just as pressing harder on the joystick buttons will not speed up your car. Bluetooth or radio waves behave like any other wave, such as sound waves.

How Far Does Bluetooth Reach?

The distance the wave travels depends both on how loud you scream and on the obstacles that surround it, and on the sensitivity of the listener. So the louder you scream, the further the voice will travel, in part due to the hardware – the structure of the voice box, lung capacity, etc. This means that Bluetooth is power-dependent or, in terms of Bluetooth technology, class -dependent.

Range Depends On The Class Of Bluetooth

There are three classes that offer three standard intended ranges. Class 1 devices transmit at 100 mW with a range of 100 meters or 328 feet. Class 2 devices transmit at 2.5 mW with a range of 10 meters or 33 feet. Most Bluetooth headsets and headphones are common Class 2 devices. Lastly, Class 3 devices transmit at 1 mW with a range of fewer than 10 meters. Note that these are intended ranges, and this is where the other part comes in. Ranges can be drastically reduced by obstacles between the two devices, such as walls, which attenuate the signals. Thus, the range is affected by transmitting power, receiver sensitivity and obstacles near the device. Also Read: What’s The Difference Between Bluetooth And Infrared Transmission?

Can We Extend Bluetooth Range?

Spatial constraints hamper communication when the devices are part of a larger, widely distributed network. Newer versions of Bluetooth have ranges from about 250 feet to 800 feet, so updating your device seems to be the most lucrative solution. However, ranges can also be stretched by using signal repeaters, intermediate devices that capture, amplify, and then transmit or repeat signals without distortion. For example, a device with a range of 33 feet that is connected to a 1000 foot repeater can enjoy a range of 1,000 feet. You could also take matters into your own hands. There are several DIY methods you can find on YouTube to extend Bluetooth ranges by tinkering with Bluetooth modules in your device, so take a soldering iron, a couple of screwdrivers and wake up your inner engineer. Another cost-effective method is to align your devices so that their signals cannot be interrupted by obstacles. Also Read: Will Turning Off Wifi And Bluetooth Expose You To Less Radiation?

A Word Of Caution

Bluetooth proved to be very useful for a decade and made enormous progress. However, due to a major flaw – security – it fell to the level of an almost extinct device. In terms of security, Bluetooth was a major setback. Attacks such as BlueSnarfing, which ambushed phones from Nokia and Ericsson, allowed attackers to connect and manipulate devices without authentication. Nevertheless, its contributions will be appreciated by introverts and revelers for posterity.

Источник

Things You Should Know About Bluetooth Range

Like all communication technologies, Bluetooth is a better fit for some applications than others. If you’re considering using Bluetooth, here’s an outline of the primary factors that determine the effective range of Bluetooth communications, plus some ways to improve it with networking. This article is now updated with the addition of Bluetooth 5 performance.

Bluetooth Classic vs. Bluetooth Low Energy

Bluetooth was originally designed to exchange a lot of data at close range in continuous, streaming data applications. The devices are able to both send and receive data at the same time. This is perfect for many common consumer products, such as computer headsets, where the two devices are close together.

When Bluetooth LE (formerly called Bluetooth Smart) hit the market in 2011, the key advantage over earlier versions was lower power consumption over the same range, but with lower bandwidth. It’s intended for devices that only need to exchange small amounts of data periodically, extending battery life by months or even years.

Bluetooth range compared

BLUETOOTH v2.1	BLUETOOTH 4.0 (LE)	BLUETOOTH 5 (LE)
Range	Up to 100 m	Up to 100 m	Up to 400 m
Max range (free field)	Around 100 m (class 2 outdoors)	Around 100 m (outdoors)	Around 1,000m (outdoors)
Frequency	2.402 – 2.481 GHz	2.402 – 2.481 GHz	2.402 — 2.481 GHz
Max data rate	1- 3 Mbit/s	1 Mbit/s	2 Mbit/s
Application Troughput	0.7-2.1 Mbit/s	Up to 305 kbit/s	Up to 1,360 kbit/s
Topologies	Point-to-point, scatternet	Point-to-point, mesh network	Point-to-point, mesh network
Network Standard	IEEE 802.15.1	IEEE 802.15.1	IEEE 802.15.1

Range depends on surroundings, radio performance and antennas

There are many factors affecting Bluetooth range, typically:

• The output power of the transmitter
• The sensitivity of the receiver
• Physical obstacles in the transmission path
• The antennas

While the radio performance and antennas are pretty static for a given Bluetooth device, the surroundings can vary a lot. Outdoors, in an open field, you can get a range of up to a hundred meters. But that is a rare situation. Indoors, obstacles like concrete walls will attenuate the radio signal and the effective range will be drastically reduced. In normal use, ten meters is a good guide to what can be achieved between two Bluetooth devices indoors.

When developing a Bluetooth device, you can give your device a better range by selecting the Bluetooth chip with the best receiver sensitivity and output power, and making sure that you use a good antenna.

Sometimes you may need to use Bluetooth over hundreds or thousands of meters. In the next section we will discuss how to extend Bluetooth range using networks.

Typical use of Bluetooth and Bluetooth LE

Bluetooth v2.1

• Wireless headsets
• File transfer between devices
• Wireless printers
• Wireless speakers

• Medical devices for monitoring and reporting
• Sports and fitness devices
• Industrial monitoring sensors
• Home automation
• Geo-based, targeted promotions via beacons
• Public transportation apps
• Remote controls
• PC peripheral devices like wireless mouse and keyboard

Bluetooth 5 enhancements

Version 5 of the Bluetooth specification brought with it a number of improvements, all aimed at making the low energy part of Bluetooth more flexible:

• 2Mbps ‘high speed’ mode, allowing you to increase the data rate or reduce the average current consumption, at the cost of a small range reduction
• 125kbs or 500kbps ‘long range’ mode, allowing you to increase range at the cost of reduced data rate and increased average current consumption
• Advertising extension feature, allowing up to 8 times the data throughput in broadcasting applications (like beacons)
• Maximum output power increased from +10 dBm to +20 dBm, allowing more powerful power amplifiers to be used, boosting range further
• New channel selection policy added (CSA2), making it possible for more devices to co-exist in the same environment without interfering with each other

How to improve Bluetooth range with networking

You can connect Bluetooth devices to multiple distributed gateways connected to the internet. The Bluetooth devices can communicate with each other, and with online services, via these gateways.

This is an ideal solution if the devices are spread over a large geographical area. Each hub can usually only handle a few directly connected devices, which is another limitation of Bluetooth. You are likely to run into a situation where you want to handle hundreds or even thousands of Bluetooth devices in a relatively small area, such as an office building. For this you need to use a Mesh Network to connect the gateway and the local Bluetooth devices.

The power of mesh networks

The number of devices that require low-power operation and communication with other devices — and online services — is growing daily. In order to support this, Bluetooth LE introduced support for Mesh Networks.

A Mesh Network allows you to connect a large number of Bluetooth devices over a wider area. In this situation, all devices, or “nodes”, in the same mesh are able to communicate with each other, either directly or via one or more intermediate nodes, as long as each node is close enough to at least two others.

This way, the network does not depend on a central gateway to pass all traffic.

Just like the Internet, data packets can find the most efficient route via any nodes between the sender and the receiver.

In a Mesh Network you can also use a “broadcasting” approach, where all nodes within the Mesh Network receive the same message, and then interpret it and take appropriate action.

One example could be a smart lighting system. Each switch or bulb is a node on a Mesh Network using Bluetooth LE . Each bulb is configured to know which room it’s in.

The message is broadcast from Node 1, a light switch, via the mesh. The connected light bulbs in Room 1 receive this message, but they will not act upon it, as they know they are not in Room 2. The message is passed along and when it reaches the bulbs in Room 2, they turn on. Room 2 could be hundreds of meters away from Room 1, but will still receive the message via the other nodes in between. This way there could be a thousand or more rooms, all with lighting controlled from anywhere, using a Bluetooth LE network.

First published in June 2016
Updated Jan 25, 2023

Источник