New Bluetooth Headphones | Jacks of all trades

Tuesday, May 09, 2006

New Bluetooth headsets and Bluetooth headphones make seamless switching from cell phone, to MP3 player, to office phone, to TV, and back to cell phone again.

Not very long ago, you may remember how strange it looked to see men in business suits walking down the street apparently talking to themselves. No they were not crazy, but rather talking on their cell phone using a nearly invisible Bluetooth headset.

Now, a whole new breed of Bluetooth headsets and Bluetooth headphones have come of age that use multipoint, or multi-use Bluetooth technology - in layman terms - they allow their user to connect simultaniously to several Bluetooth-enabled devices, and switch between the devices with the pressing of a button.

There are two main styles emerging - Bluetooth headsets as well as Bluetooth headphones.

Bluetooth headsets are generally are worn over the ear and have a single earpiece that fits either in the ear or outside it, allowing you to connect to two devices such as an iPod and a cellphone. When a call comes in, the headset will mute the music and allow you to answer the call with the press of a button. Pressing the button again after the call finishes will reconnect you to your iPod and un-mute the volume.

Bluetooth headphones are now becoming increasingly popular, having similar functionality to the bluetooth headsets, but are worn over both ears, and allow for wireless full stereo playback of your music player, cell phone, or even a home stereo receiver. Typically Bluetooth headphones only allow the user to use with one device at a time, but the signal quality is much better than previous wireless technologies.

Many new headphones are adopting a new Bluetooth technology called A2DP. A2DP pairs the headset with music players, cell phones, and other Bluetooth-enabled devices, allowing you to keep the devices in your pocket and fast forward, rewind, or make phone calls by pressing buttons located on the headphones.