Also known as: BT, Bluetooth Low Energy, BLE
Bluetooth is a short-range wireless standard for connecting devices over the 2.4 GHz band, used for audio, peripherals, and low-power links between nearby gadgets.1
Overview
Bluetooth forms small personal-area networks between paired devices — headphones to a phone, a keyboard to a laptop, a sensor to a hub — hopping rapidly across the crowded 2.4 GHz ISM band to dodge interference. Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) is a separate, power-frugal profile aimed at battery devices that wake, send a short burst, and sleep, which has made it the backbone of many IoT sensors and wearables. Unlike Wi-Fi, it targets close-range, low-bandwidth links rather than network access; for touch-range pairing, NFC is closer still.
What it’s for
Bluetooth is built for convenience over short distances at low power, not throughput. It is rarely part of a GopherTrunk data path, but its dense 2.4 GHz traffic — alongside Wi-Fi — is exactly the kind of noisy spectrum an SDR user learns to recognize and avoid when siting an antenna.