Bluetooth in Action

Bluetooth gets no respect in the United States, owing in part to the glacial pace of product introductions. But it is becoming more common in notebooks, PDAs, and especially cell phones, providing users a wireless way to transmit small amounts of data over short distances.

Bluetooth does face competition from a new wireless technology. Called Ultra Wideband, or UWB, it promises data-transfer rates up to 480 megabits per second, while most current Bluetooth devices transfer data at up to 721 kilobits per second.

Does this mean Bluetooth is long in the tooth? Not necessarily. Bluetooth devices are unlikely to disappear anytime soon, and UWB has its own pitfalls: Its fastest transfer rates work only within 3 feet; there is no single UWB specification; and many countries haven't approved UWB yet. Those issues should be solved by year's end, but devices may not appear until spring 2005.

For now, increasingly creative Bluetooth devices are cropping up. Looking beyond the typical, utilitarian gear, I tried out four intriguing (yet quirky) accessories for Bluetooth phones.

Talk to the Dashboard

When paired with a cell phone, the CCM Blue Warrior Car Kit (3.5 stars out of 5, $80) becomes a speakerphone that plugs into your car's power adapter. The noise-canceling microphone reduces background sounds effectively, and the large buttons make adjusting speaker volume easy. The Blue Warrior is far from sleek or sexy, but it's certainly the most practical device I tested.

Tiny Tune Box for Phone Fiends

Part MP3 music player and part hands-free phone headset, the compact, very lightweight Sony Ericsson HBM-30 (3 stars out of 5, $109) is a cute little gadget that lets you take calls with minimal interruption of your music. It automatically pauses music for an incoming call, and you speak into its built-in microphone (the HBM-30 is meant to be worn around your neck or clipped to your clothes) and listen to the caller through the stereo headphones.

While it offers good-quality sound for both music and phone calls, and it paired easily with my Sony Ericsson T637 Bluetooth phone, I would definitely replace the headphones with a more comfortable set. In addition, the battery chamber cover was extremely difficult to remove. In short: cool concept, lukewarm execution.

A Pen for Your Thoughts

With Nokia's SU-1B Digital Pen (3.5 stars out of 5, $249), I doodled and made handwritten notes in ink on a special notepad and transmitted them from the pen to my Bluetooth phone. I then sent my scribbles from the phone to friends via Multimedia Messaging System. As an alternative to typing on a cell phone keypad, this pen is a handy--though pricey--tool for MMS addicts. The pen can transfer drawings and notes to a PC, too, but only through a USB connection. (You can save your jottings in formats like BMP and JPEG, but you can't easily convert them to text.)

Show Your Phone Snapshots on TV

Want to make a slide show out of your camera-phone photos the next time your friends visit? Nokia's SU-2 Image Viewer (2.5 stars out of 5, $90) lets you display the shots on a TV or projector. Hook this square gray thingamajig to your TV's RCA input via the built-in cable, beam the pictures wirelessly to the SU-2 from your Bluetooth-enabled phone, and let the photo fest begin.

The unit is easy to set up and use, but it displays resolutions only up to 640 by 480; if you have a newer phone that takes higher-resolution photos, you won't be able to use this device. And 640-by-480-pixel photos will look blocky on a TV screen, no matter what. If your phone can send batches of photos (my T637 couldn't do it), you can create a slide show; Nokia says you also can use sequentially beamed shots.

James A. Martin is a PC World contributing editor.