Bluetooth broadcasting

Abstract

Background: The wireless technology Bluetooth has rapidly become more commonly supported by electronic devices like mobile phones and PDAs. Several companies are currently developing Bluetooth broadcasting systems to use for marketing. This report is a result of researching the use of Bluetooth broadcasting for delivering information for more general purposes, how well Bluetooth actually works for broadcasting, and also on the topic of user privacy. Results: Broadcasting with Bluetooth did work with a few devices at the same time, since Bluetooth allows up to seven connections to one Bluetooth radio at the same time. By making a passive system where the user is the one which requests information, it also will not affect users' privacy. However, my research also found a few issues with the Bluetooth which might affect a broadcast, the most noticeable of them being the somewhat low transfer rate, an issue with device discovery not always working when a lot of users are doing device discovery at the same time. The fact that it only supports seven connections is also a limitation. Basically, while it is possible to use Bluetooth for broadcasting, it might be problematic to use it for targeting a large audience. Conclusions: Even with the problems mentioned, Bluetooth broadcasting provides quite a unique way of broadcasting, and with the newer versions of Bluetooth the issues mentioned might be less of a problem. Bluetooth broadcasting definitely has some potential.