What flavour of Bluetooth did you buy today?

The Bluetooth profile conundrum that is pervasive throughout the mobile phone industry has reached legal proceedings in the US as posted on laptopmag.com.

This is the ugly side of Bluetooth, were users are at the mercy of advertising & marketing hyperbole. In Australia most users see Bluetooth as just one flavour, but the fact is that like your local Krispy Kreme outlet, there are many different flavours that you can partake of.
So, the fact that not all Bluetooth devices are not the same can be both expensive and in extreme cases illegal misrepresentation of the product to the user.

Bluetooth has the following main profiles of which the device manufacturer chooses to include or not:

• Generic Access Profile – The basic profile in how Bluetooth operates
• Telephone Control Protocol Specification Profile – dial numbers, volume control
• Headset Profile – Connects to a headset
• Handsfree Profile – Connects to a handsfree system
• Dial-up Networking Profile – Ability to do data transfers with PDAs or notebooks
• File Transfer Profile – exchange files between devices
• Human Interface Device Profile – keyboards, mouses, joysticks etc
• Basic Printing Profile – Print!

Now there are quite a few others and they are subject to versioning of the hardware 1.0, 1.1 etc, but you can visit mobileshop or got to PaloWireless for more details.

Going back to the Laptopmag article, they have the right idea, whether seriously or not, about a small sticker on the box, like all packaged food we buy, that shows the buyer exactly what flavour of Bluetooth they are buying.

Thanks to Gizmodo for link to the story