Before they use Bluetooth extensively, companies will want to see interoperability between equipment from different vendors and a consistent user interface to operate the devices. They will also want to avoid interference problems with other wireless technologies, particularly 802.11b wireless LAN (WLAN) kit.

In IT Week Labs, we have evaluated a wide range of Bluetooth devices over the last year, including mobile phones, network access points, notebooks and adapter cards, Bluetooth-enabled printers and printer adapters. One of the main difficulties that we encountered was the varying quality of the user interfaces supplied by different vendors. We found some were clumsy and unintuitive, leading to confusion when attempting to establish a connection between devices.

At the moment, mobile phones lead the way in integrating Bluetooth technology, where it is beginning to displace infrared and cable connections for accessing the Internet on the move. The steady uptake of Bluetooth devices has been encouraged by the relative ease of setting up Bluetooth-enabled mobile phones with other devices, such as notebooks.

The first Bluetooth phone interfaces to appear were clip-on adapters, but recent handsets such as Sony-Ericsson's T68 have Bluetooth as an integral feature. This makes linking to a computer or wireless headset more straightforward. However, during tests using the T68 phone we found that we were unable to simultaneously connect to two Bluetooth devices, such as a headset for a voice call and a laptop for data.

The only notebook PC currently on the market with integral Bluetooth and 802.11b capabilities that can be used simultaneously is Sony's Vaio PCG-SRX41P. In tests, we found that using both together results in interference that reduces throughput in both the Bluetooth and 802.11b connections to less than 60 percent and 50 percent of their respective optimal transmission rates.

On the positive side, neither technology suffered a broken connection because of interference from the other.

Wireless printing with Bluetooth is another area we found to be problematic, because products were shipped before the Bluetooth Special Interest Group (SIG) had completed the specification profile that defines connections to printers. With this element missing, each of the adapters we looked at accomplished printing through proprietary additions to the Bluetooth standard.

Upon installation of a Bluetooth adapter, a PDA or laptop's client software creates a virtual serial port to which Bluetooth print jobs can be sent. But the client software must first be used to "discover" any available printers before linking to one. Each Bluetooth client interface we looked at did this differently, making setup confusing.

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