What Can Tablets Do With Bluetooth?

rick7

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Oct 19, 2011
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I know that most tablets are Bluetooth-enabled, but what does this mean practically for the user? What can you actually do with tablets and bluetooth?
 

pbrauer

Administrator
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Sep 24, 2010
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You can use a BT keyboard and mouse. BT Headphones for movies or music. BT Printing if your printer is equipped that way. If you have a BT enabled car, and your tablet supports it you can do BT nav from placed like Google Nav.

Those are a couple of things you can do.
 

rick7

Member
Oct 19, 2011
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Ah, thanks. A BT headset is a type of wireless headset, yes? With a BT headset, how far away could I be standing from the tablet and still hear good audio? I.e., what's the range? Does it have to be within line-of-sight like infrared? Thanks a lot.
 

pbrauer

Administrator
Staff member
Sep 24, 2010
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Bluetooth is a totally different technology from both WiFi and Infrared, and yes it is wireless. Generally speaking you can go about 30-40 feet away from the device and still receive a good signal, but this is affected by battery power of the receiving device and environmental factors such as walls, other device interference, etc. It does not need to be line of sight, but it does need a certain amount of proximity.
 

rick7

Member
Oct 19, 2011
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Thanks. Right now (I don't have a tablet yet!) I am using a great RF 2.4 GHz wireless headset for my Windows desktop PC. My computer is upstairs and this headset allows me to walk around downstairs and anywhere in the house and there's really no signal degradation. I'm guessing that when I get my tablet, a bluetooth headset wouldn't have quite this range and quality, but would it allow me to, say, go behind a wall and into another room that's, say, 25 feet away from the tablet? Thanks for your help--it's much appreciated.
 

Spider

Administrator
Staff member
Mar 24, 2011
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would it allow me to, say, go behind a wall and into another room that's, say, 25 feet away from the tablet?

That's the best part about a tablet, you take it around the wall into the other room with you. Unlike a desktop, you don't need to stay in range of it, you keep it in range of you.:)
 

rick7

Member
Oct 19, 2011
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That's the best part about a tablet, you take it around the wall into the other room with you. Unlike a desktop, you don't need to stay in range of it, you keep it in range of you.:)

Right! OK, I'm still trying to figure out how I'd be using a tablet since I'm planning to use it a lot for listening to talk and music podcasts which maybe is different than how most people use theirs. I guess I'm thinking that as I walk around the house doing things, I'll leave the tablet in the living room since I don't want to be carrying it around with me wherever I go (doing dishes, cooking, back to the living room for a minute, upstairs for a few minutes, etc.) and would be wearing the headset to give me this freedom to be hands-free. Maybe in a way this goes against the concept of a (portable) tablet but I want to see if I'll be able to have my cake and eat it too. I'll sometimes use it as a portable device and take it out of the house, but I may also want to rely on the headset for the portability while in the house.
 
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rick7

Member
Oct 19, 2011
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0
I use BT to transfer files from My Laptop to my Tablet

When you do this, does the OS load some sort of file manager to transfer your files? Is it some sort of Android file manager, or is it a BT-specific file manager?
 
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TheCentauress

Senior Member
Aug 22, 2011
32
1
When you do this, does the OS load some sort of file manager to transfer your files? Is it some sort of Android file manager, or is it a BT-specific file manager?

In actuality, it's built-in to the BT protocol to do file transfers. If you can *USE* the file, that depends on what is transferred over. You could conceivably use your phone as a sort of flash drive to transport work home.
 

rick7

Member
Oct 19, 2011
44
0
Ok, thanks. I just realized I don't know something pretty elemental: how do you copy files from a tablet to a Windows desktop computer that doesn't have Bluetooth? I don't have a smartphone at all!
 

DarrylB

Senior Member
Aug 31, 2011
113
3
Ok, thanks. I just realized I don't know something pretty elemental: how do you copy files from a tablet to a Windows desktop computer that doesn't have Bluetooth? I don't have a smartphone at all!

sometimes you can connect directly using USB or other external storage methods such as an SD card if your computer has a slot for it. You could always use cloud storage as well, there's a lot of free cloud based storage services out there that would do the trick.
 

namitutonka

Junior Member
Oct 13, 2014
1
0
I know that most tablets are Bluetooth-enabled, but what does this mean practically for the user? What can you actually do with tablets and bluetooth?

EasyTether shares Internet connection on your Android smartphone with your computer or tablet. EasyTether uses exactly the same data plan that is used for the on-phone Internet access like in the built-in browser or e-mail app or youtube application. No additional tethering fees.
Features
USB tethering support for Windows, Mac OS X, Linux computers and Android tablets including Kindle Fire
  • Bluetooth tethering support for Windows computers and Android tablets
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  • Compatible with Android 4.0.3+ tablets including Kindle Fire
  • UDP support for games, for L2TP VPN (not PPTP!) and for some IM apps
  • PS3, XBox 360 or Wii tethering via Windows/OS X Internet Connection Sharing feature
  • Free lifetime upgrades for the full version
  • Implemented as a normal NAT application with full TCP and UDP support
  • Compatible with HTC Sync .......

  • from namitutonka:
  • ............Although I haven't installed this on either my AT&T Samsung SGH-i537 S4 Active, or my Windows 7 PC, and do not have a tablet, I may have a tablet in the future. I've priced tablets, and wi-fi/bluetooth only tablets cost over a hundred dollars less than LTE/3G/4G tablets. Whenever I'm home I can connect a wi-fi/bluetooth device to my internet, but if I am ever away from home, on the road or on vacation, this alternative connection will most likely come into play. I don't have any use for tethering yet, but maybe someday I might use this.
acttr

acttr
 

Peter Carlos

Member
Nov 11, 2014
15
0
I know that most tablets are Bluetooth-enabled, but what does this mean practically for the user? What can you actually do with tablets and bluetooth?

Well, I use use my tablet bluetooth for is using wireless Keyboard, mouse, BT headset, sometimes I use to connect it with my car music system to play music, I also use it over my music system to listen songs at my home.
 
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