In this blog, we will be discussing a prior topic (connections) but be looking at a different aspect of them, the Wireless Connection. These can be seen in a few forms, but the ones we will be looking at are NFC, Bluetooth, finally Infrared. We will start alphabetically, for some reason, by looking at Bluetooth.
Bluetooth is a relatively short range wireless mode of communication that is most often found on headsets, keyboards, and other peripherals. It requires that you have a bluetooth enabled receiver as well as a transmitter, otherwise it cannot connect. The range is actually dependent on the class the bluetooth receiver is. Class 1 uses a lot of power, and in turn can be connected to far away, up to 100 meters. Class 2 uses far less power, and in turn has shorter range, being around 10 meters. Finally, class 3 uses next to no power, and in turn has next to no range, being less than 10 meters. Some people may think bluetooth is only used for peripherals, but that isn’t entirely true, as you can send files over bluetooth as well, creating a type of LAN. The speeds of bluetooth are all pretty low, with the fastest one being around 25 Megabits per second and the slowest being around 70 Kilobits per second.
If you thought low power bluetooth has short range, get a load of NFC (Near Field Communication.) NFC devices are commonly used for payment processing (Ever use tap to pay on your phone or credit card? Well there you go) Another use case, but one you will almost definitely not use in a day to day IT application, would be their use for entertainment. Whether it is Nintendo’s Amiibo statues that use NFC tech to interact with games, or Disney using NFC tech for their park passes / Magic Band tech (Which I guess you could experience that 2nd one if you do actually work for Disney, but I’d guess most IT work is done outside of the most magical place on Earth) The range for NFC is about 4 inches, and the speed is rated for about 400 Kilobits per second, slower than most bluetooth, but you won’t be sending huge amounts of data anyway, so it doesn’t really matter.
Finally, let’s look at the black sheep of wireless communications, IR (Infrared). Have you ever used a remote for a TV? Well that is most likely an IR blaster sending a command to the receiver built into the TV. A big downside of IR (and probably why it is so seldomly used) is that it has to be line of sight, so if you are slightly outside the cone of acceptable line of sight, it will not work. But given that you have lined up the IR blaster (which I didn’t mention before, but yes, IR Blaster is the technical term, which I think is really cool) and the IR receiver, it can get up to 15 Megabits per second, but that would have to be almost touching to achieve those speeds. The further the distance, the slower the speed, as even light needs to travel, even if it is very, very fast.
In the end, out of three discussed here, there are for sure some use cases where you would want to use them (Who in their right mind would want to pair their remote to their TV like you would have to to use bluetooth. Or have the remote within 4 inches of the screen, using NFC.) And this is just a basic overview, we did not even discuss the security found in the 3, but maybe that will be in my next series of blogs in 2025.