I’m not known for my gambling, but I’d wager a bet that you’re listening to me right now on a pair of headphones or earbuds connected to your phone via something magical called Bluetooth. We don’t think about Bluetooth much. But it’s everywhere—working behind the scenes to connect our devices, sync our data, and spare us from a world of tangled cords. Blech.
It’s the silent digital handshake we rely on dozens of times a day, often without realizing it. Whether it’s your smartwatch syncing your steps, your phone talking to your car, or your speaker playing your guilty-pleasure artist (Dua Lipa, naturally)—Bluetooth is in the middle of it.
So what exactly is Bluetooth? How does it work? And yeah… what’s up with that name?
What is it?
In order to get the full story of Bluetooth we need to step back in history just a bit.
Picture this: It’s the late 90s and flannel seems to still be everywhere. The dot-com boom is in full swing, and there’s a bit of an obsession with making things wireless, and somewhere in Sweden, a couple of engineers at Ericsson are trying to do just that: get your gadgets to talk to each other without plugging them in.
Enter Jaap Haartsen and Sven Mattisson. These two were holed up in Lund, Sweden, working on something they called “MC-Link”—basically an early attempt to let devices sync up over short distances without a tangle of cords. And while it was kind of revolutionary at the time, cool tech doesn’t get very far without some support.
So, they took their idea on the road. That’s where Jim Kardach from Intel comes in. He saw the potential, helped package the idea, and brought some heavy hitters to the table including Intel, IBM, Nokia, and Toshiba. Along with Ericsson, that became the founding crew of the Bluetooth Special Interest Group. They made it official in May of 1998.
Today, the Bluetooth Group is massive—over 38,000 companies are part of it, including Apple, Microsoft, and Lenovo. It’s the group that manages the standards, makes sure your earbuds can talk to your phone, and quietly keeps the wireless world humming.
And fun fact—Jim Kardach is credited with coining the name Bluetooth, but he didn’t come up with it entirely on his own. During a chat with Sven Mattisson from Ericsson—who, like Jim, was a bit of a history nerd—Sven told him about Harald “Bluetooth” Gormsson, the 10th-century Viking king who united Denmark and Norway. Kardach loved the metaphor: their tech was meant to unite different devices and communication protocols—just like Harald had united the tribes. He proposed “Bluetooth” as a temporary codename.
But when it came time to launch, the flashier names like–RadioWire—either ran into trademark issues or were already in use. And “Bluetooth,” well… it had already made it into the marketing materials. It stuck before anyone could replace it.
Even the logo pays homage: it’s a mash-up of two Viking runes, Harald’s initials.
And yes—historians believe Harald earned the nickname because of a dark, possibly dead tooth that stood out enough to get him branded for it. Not exactly the legacy you’d expect to end up on millions of earbuds, but here we are.
How it works
So what’s going on in that invisible handshake between devices?
Bluetooth uses short-range radio waves in the same frequency band as your Wi-Fi — the 2.4 gigahertz range incidentally. But unlike Wi-Fi, Bluetooth is optimized for low-power, low-data transmissions between devices that are physically close to each other—usually within 30 feet.
One clever trick it uses is frequency hopping. Unlike when I go bar hopping and can only hop to like 2 places and then call it a night, Bluetooth devices rapidly jump between 79 different frequencies—up to 1,600 times per second—lush. This helps them avoid interference from other signals and stay connected even in busy environments like airports, cafés, or dive bars.
When two devices pair, they create a Personal Area Network specifically for Bluetooth called a piconet. One device takes the lead and the others become peripherals. This mini-network exists only as long as the devices are connected. Then the piconet, or meet cute as I like to think of it, is over. Sad, really.
A big leap in Bluetooth’s evolution came with the introduction of Bluetooth Low Energy, or BLE. Unlike classic Bluetooth, which maintains a constant connection and consumes more power, BLE is optimized for devices that need to send small amounts of data at intervals—and run for months or even years on a tiny battery. It’s what powers your fitness tracker, smart lock, or temperature sensor, allowing them to stay quietly connected without draining juice. BLE made it possible for Bluetooth to move beyond headphones and into the world of wearables, smart home gadgets, medical sensors, and item trackers like Tile or Apple AirTags—so that you can more easily follow your bag’s journey to someplace more exotic and interesting.
Conclusion
So the next time your earbuds connect without a fuss—or your car starts playing your favorite playlist the moment you sit down—remember Bluetooth. Developed by a group of nerds from opposite sides of the Atlantic, it’s not the flashiest tech in your pocket, but it’s one of the most quietly essential.
Named after a Viking. Running on radio waves. And making the digital world just a little bit smoother, one short-range signal at a time.
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