Spotlight on Bluetooth: A complete guide to the wireless tech we love to hate

There are a lot of wireless technologies in the world today, from Wi-Fi to NFC to plain old LTE. However, we'd argue that Bluetooth, among all of them, is the most divisive.

It's a short-range wireless protocol that's everywhere around us — our phones use it to communicate with headphones or send photos, our computers use it to connect to mice and keyboards, and businesses use it to track customers around stores — but many of us don't know how it works, where it came from, and why it exploded in popularity over the last few years.

Working with our colleagues at Windows Central and iMore, we decided that now was the right time to shine a Spotlight on Bluetooth. We have around 20 posts spread out between the three sites detailing everything from where the name came from to why it's so bad in cars to how companies like Google and Apple have built on top of it to make it more reliable.

At the same time, we found some ways to have fun with the technology, highlighting some of the hilarious and sad aspects of Bluetooth — the terrible design trends it started, and the headphone jacks it killed.

With that, thanks for reading, and let us know what you think — and what other topics you'd like to see shine our spotlight on in the future.

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