What is Wireless? Part 1: An introduction

What does wireless mean?

This is one of the most common, if not the most common question I get in the store. For some reason the person asking this question usually manages to look extremely sheepish. On the face of it, it appears simple and that’s probably why people expect to be embarrassed.

The issue is that it is not.

“Wireless” is a term that has come to mean any number of things in the last few years, and it’s difficult for even us to keep up, and working with Bose it consumes almost my entire existence.

Over the next few of my posts I hope to clear up the somewhat muddied waters of wireless technology by explaining the “big three”; the ones you are most likely to come into contact with when dealing with audio and Hi-Fi applications. These are only introductions, the nuts and bolts will follow soon.

Radio

The first, and up until recently, most common wireless transmission method is Radio frequency. This is what the majority of our customers are most familiar with. It’s what sends the signals to your FM and AM radios. The main benefit of radio is that it is effective over very long ranges and is able to transmit through walls. Bose takes advantage of this by making all of their Lifestyle remotes Radio frequency, not infra-red like the majority of remotes you’ll find. In a later post I will walk through the advantages and disadvantages of Radio signals in more detail.

Bluetooth 

Up next is Bluetooth. In a nutshell Bluetooth is what you will most commonly use for situations where you need short-range transmission, often to a portable device. What this means is that it’s perfect for portable speakers which will spend a lot of time travelling with you, but will never end up very far away. Bose cater to this market with the Soundlink range of speakers and headphones. Up until recently it was thought that Bluetooth would be the gold standard in wireless transmission into the foreseeable future. However it has been knocked off its throne by Wi-Fi. More on Bluetooth will follow later, for now hopefully this summary at least partly illuminates this area for you.

Wi-Fi

This is the state of the art, bleeding edge of wireless transmission. It has virtually unlimited transmission speed, allows you to stream music from one source to multiple devices and often allows more functionality with less strain on the processors in your phone or tablet. Really the only disadvantage is that Wi-Fi systems are only useful in your home because they have to be connected to a Wi-Fi network you have control over. Bose are backing Wi-FI in a big way, as are most of the industry, making most of our systems Wi-Fi capable, which means you can easily stream music from Pandora, Spotify, Deezer, Internet Radio, or the music library on your computer to every room in your house. There’s a lot to say about Wi-Fi so expect a long article about it in the near future.

Hopefully this has given you at least some indication of what you should be looking for. Check our Facebook page and this blog again later this week for the first in-depth explanation about one of these technologies. With advantages, disadvantages and the best solution for whatever you need your systems to do.

- Sean Stack