Wireless speakers for laptop?

Adrian C wrote:
wrote:
BillW50 wrote:

Does it has to be Bluetooth? As I find FM transmitters to work out
very well and they have superior range. Plus you can receive it on
any FM radio. I also pick it up with my iRiver T10 MP3 players and
use them as wireless headsets as well.

Well I already have BT built into my laptop

I'd use that.

Sound quality would be better (No FM radio band interference), and as to
the laptop it looks like another soundcard, it means that the original
soundcard can be used for something else - like Skype...

What FM band interference Adrian? That is the beauty of frequency
modulation is that "FM radio... It's virtually immune to any type of
external interference...(¹)." Most FM transmitters have a 150 foot range
while bluetooth only has an effective range of 30 foot(²). And since it
operates at 2.4GHz, can be far less do to interference from microwave
ovens, cordless phones, garage door openers, WiFi, etc.

Also FM transmitters requires no OS drivers and can be used for
virtually anything that uses audio. Nor does FM transmitters use any
kind of the CPU time. Plus it works for non-computer devices too. Yes it
even works for such things like Skype as well. In fact I do so all of
the time.

(¹) http://www.cybercollege.com/frtv/frtv017.htm
(²) http://www.mobileinfo.com/Bluetooth/FAQ.htm#t6

--
Bill
Asus EEE PC 8GB 1GB SoDIMM Adata 16GB
Windows XP SP2 and Xandros Linux

BillW50 wrote:
Adrian C wrote:
wrote:
BillW50 wrote:

Does it has to be Bluetooth? As I find FM transmitters to work out
very well and they have superior range. Plus you can receive it on
any FM radio. I also pick it up with my iRiver T10 MP3 players and
use them as wireless headsets as well.

Well I already have BT built into my laptop

I'd use that.

Sound quality would be better (No FM radio band interference), and as
to the laptop it looks like another soundcard, it means that the
original soundcard can be used for something else - like Skype...

What FM band interference Adrian? That is the beauty of frequency
modulation is that "FM radio... It's virtually immune to any type of
external interference...(¹)." Most FM transmitters have a 150 foot range
while bluetooth only has an effective range of 30 foot(²). And since it
operates at 2.4GHz, can be far less do to interference from microwave
ovens, cordless phones, garage door openers, WiFi, etc.

Also FM transmitters requires no OS drivers and can be used for
virtually anything that uses audio. Nor does FM transmitters use any
kind of the CPU time. Plus it works for non-computer devices too. Yes it
even works for such things like Skype as well. In fact I do so all of
the time.

(¹) http://www.cybercollege.com/frtv/frtv017.htm
(²) http://www.mobileinfo.com/Bluetooth/FAQ.htm#t6

Bill,

I think Adrian meant, interference due to commercial stations and others.

--
John Doue

John Doue wrote on Mon, 01 Dec 2008 21:41:17 GMT:
BillW50 wrote:
Adrian C wrote:
wrote:
BillW50 wrote:

Does it has to be Bluetooth? As I find FM transmitters to work out
very well and they have superior range. Plus you can receive it on
any FM radio. I also pick it up with my iRiver T10 MP3 players and
use them as wireless headsets as well.

Well I already have BT built into my laptop

I'd use that.

Sound quality would be better (No FM radio band interference), and as
to the laptop it looks like another soundcard, it means that the
original soundcard can be used for something else - like Skype...

What FM band interference Adrian? That is the beauty of frequency
modulation is that "FM radio... It's virtually immune to any type of
external interference...(¹)." Most FM transmitters have a 150 foot
range while bluetooth only has an effective range of 30 foot(²). And
since it operates at 2.4GHz, can be far less do to interference from
microwave ovens, cordless phones, garage door openers, WiFi, etc.

Also FM transmitters requires no OS drivers and can be used for
virtually anything that uses audio. Nor does FM transmitters use any
kind of the CPU time. Plus it works for non-computer devices too. Yes
it even works for such things like Skype as well. In fact I do so all
of the time.

(¹) http://www.cybercollege.com/frtv/frtv017.htm
(²) http://www.mobileinfo.com/Bluetooth/FAQ.htm#t6

Bill,

I think Adrian meant, interference due to commercial stations and others.

Well there isn't many places in the world that all FM channels are used
up. But even if you live in one of these rare locations, the strongest
channel wins as far as FM goes. And that could be the very little FM
transmitter that you are transmitting on since it is so close. Even
still, many of these FM transmitters can transmit between channels as
well. So it is almost impossible to have a problem with commercial FM
transmitters at any rate.

I think FM transmitters are the coolest things (well for both video and
audio, UHF transmitters are the coolest). As FM receivers are all over
the place. Even in your car. As I can hear what is going on driving to
and from my own house. Other methods of wireless just can't match the
overall usefulness of FM as far as I can tell. Plus FM is very
inexpensive while other methods cost a lot more and adds a lot more
complexity too.

Also I believe I have made it unclear before, but FM is also immune to
microwave ovens, cordless phones, garage door openers, WiFi, etc., but
Bluetooth is not. Bluetooth is 2.4GHz technology and they are all
supposed to get along with each other. But of course reality is far
different than on paper. As I have to shift my WiFi channels (2.4GHz
technology) so it can work whenever somebody uses the cordless phone
(2.4GHz technology). FM transmitters have no such nonsense to play with.
As there are no local devices that bothers it at all.

I am not saying that Bluetooth doesn't have their uses. Sure the more
Bluetooth devices you have, the more attractive it gets.

--
Bill
Asus EEE PC 8GB 1GB SoDIMM Adata 16GB
Windows XP SP2 and Xandros Linux

BillW50 wrote:
John Doue wrote on Mon, 01 Dec 2008 21:41:17 GMT:
BillW50 wrote:
Adrian C wrote:
wrote:
BillW50 wrote:

Does it has to be Bluetooth? As I find FM transmitters to work out
very well and they have superior range. Plus you can receive it on
any FM radio. I also pick it up with my iRiver T10 MP3 players and
use them as wireless headsets as well.

Well I already have BT built into my laptop

I'd use that.

Sound quality would be better (No FM radio band interference), and
as to the laptop it looks like another soundcard, it means that the
original soundcard can be used for something else - like Skype...

What FM band interference Adrian? That is the beauty of frequency
modulation is that "FM radio... It's virtually immune to any type of
external interference...(¹)." Most FM transmitters have a 150 foot
range while bluetooth only has an effective range of 30 foot(²). And
since it operates at 2.4GHz, can be far less do to interference from
microwave ovens, cordless phones, garage door openers, WiFi, etc.

Also FM transmitters requires no OS drivers and can be used for
virtually anything that uses audio. Nor does FM transmitters use any
kind of the CPU time. Plus it works for non-computer devices too. Yes
it even works for such things like Skype as well. In fact I do so all
of the time.

(¹) http://www.cybercollege.com/frtv/frtv017.htm
(²) http://www.mobileinfo.com/Bluetooth/FAQ.htm#t6

Bill,

I think Adrian meant, interference due to commercial stations and others.

Well there isn't many places in the world that all FM channels are used
up. But even if you live in one of these rare locations, the strongest
channel wins as far as FM goes. And that could be the very little FM
transmitter that you are transmitting on since it is so close. Even
still, many of these FM transmitters can transmit between channels as
well. So it is almost impossible to have a problem with commercial FM
transmitters at any rate.

I think FM transmitters are the coolest things (well for both video and
audio, UHF transmitters are the coolest). As FM receivers are all over
the place. Even in your car. As I can hear what is going on driving to
and from my own house. Other methods of wireless just can't match the
overall usefulness of FM as far as I can tell. Plus FM is very
inexpensive while other methods cost a lot more and adds a lot more
complexity too.

Also I believe I have made it unclear before, but FM is also immune to
microwave ovens, cordless phones, garage door openers, WiFi, etc., but
Bluetooth is not. Bluetooth is 2.4GHz technology and they are all
supposed to get along with each other. But of course reality is far
different than on paper. As I have to shift my WiFi channels (2.4GHz
technology) so it can work whenever somebody uses the cordless phone
(2.4GHz technology). FM transmitters have no such nonsense to play with.
As there are no local devices that bothers it at all.

I am not saying that Bluetooth doesn't have their uses. Sure the more
Bluetooth devices you have, the more attractive it gets.

Bill,

Interesting you are so excited about FM technology. I discovered one
aspect of it, when about 15 years, my wife wanted to install a CD player
in a car whose radio (remember, that was 15 years ago) had no input port
for such a device. My installer proceeded to install an FM adapter,
basically the output of the CD player being broadcasted on a (choice of
3)FM frequency. This setup did work nicely in a given area, but in
different areas, the choosen frequency could be covered by a radio station.

So, I would say, this technology has a lot of merits, but unless there
is some automatic frequency matching device, it can be vulnerable to
interference.

Bluetooth? great but not the way it often is implemented. When I
connect my 3G phone via bluetooth to my computer, almost often the OS
says "new device found" (even if this is the npth time I connect it) and
assigns a new port to the connection (without saying which one). Used to
drive me nuts, until I learnt to check the Modem Icon in Control Panel
and make sure the port attributed to the phone's modem was the one
assigned to the connection.

Matching two devices is always difficult. You are being asked for
passwords you never wanted, the connection setup procedure is
unpredictable. Ok, when it works, dandy. But each connection is an
adventure, no big deal for users who know their way out, but for others ...

--
John Doue

John Doue wrote:

Bluetooth? great but not the way it often is implemented. When I
connect my 3G phone via bluetooth to my computer, almost often the OS
says "new device found" (even if this is the npth time I connect it) and
assigns a new port to the connection (without saying which one). Used to
drive me nuts, until I learnt to check the Modem Icon in Control Panel
and make sure the port attributed to the phone's modem was the one
assigned to the connection.

Great

I just bought a Bluetooth mouse for my laptop

Should have gotten reg wireless mouse huh?

I have a Bluetooth mouse for one laptop. The computer finds and connects to
it automatically as soon as Bluetooth is running. They are no problem
whatsoever except they won't work until the o/s is loaded.

Terry

wrote in message
...
John Doue wrote:

Bluetooth? great but not the way it often is implemented. When I
connect my 3G phone via bluetooth to my computer, almost often the OS
says "new device found" (even if this is the npth time I connect it) and
assigns a new port to the connection (without saying which one). Used to
drive me nuts, until I learnt to check the Modem Icon in Control Panel
and make sure the port attributed to the phone's modem was the one
assigned to the connection.

Great

I just bought a Bluetooth mouse for my laptop

Should have gotten reg wireless mouse huh?

John Doue wrote:
Bill,

I think Adrian meant, interference due to commercial stations and others.


Yeah, depends where you are - but here (London, UK) the FM band is a bit
crowded with broadcast stations, pirate (unlicensed) stations, ipod
transmitters and hash from badly screened high speed electronics.

I take on board the problems with 2.4GHz interference, that can have an
detrimental effect (in fact worse than FM if truely bad - bluetooth
stutters and cuts out) but when it works it's solid with both RX/TX ends
in the same room. I run a busy wifi network here without issues.

My solution doesn't dangle a dongle on a laptop for the OP as the
hardware is built in. CPU use is not much when you count how many cycles
are stolen out of a gigahertz or two.

To test this (but going the other way), the OP could make a simple test
if he has a mobile phone with bluetooth and stored MP3 files. Pair the
phone with the laptop, enable the 'Advanced Audio' service on the laptop
and set the phone playing back an MP3 through the link. The music should
playback through the mixer and speakers of the laptop.

Admittedly, my mention of Skype was a 'curved ball' thrown for advanced
use. Some of my machines have multiple sound 'cards' - Skype gets it's
own sound card for making calls (and the ringing bell!) while the other
sound card is in use with general windows audio applications.

--
Adrian C

wrote:
John Doue wrote:

Bluetooth? great but not the way it often is implemented. When I
connect my 3G phone via bluetooth to my computer, almost often the OS
says "new device found" (even if this is the npth time I connect it) and
assigns a new port to the connection (without saying which one). Used to
drive me nuts, until I learnt to check the Modem Icon in Control Panel
and make sure the port attributed to the phone's modem was the one
assigned to the connection.

Great

I just bought a Bluetooth mouse for my laptop

Should have gotten reg wireless mouse huh?

Don't know what a reg wireless mouse might be; I just said, bluetooth is
nice, but when you want to do something a little more elaborate than
connecting a mouse, it's problematic. Try it for yourself.

Personally, since my mouse in never far away than my machine, I trust an
USB mouth, especially since I can use it as soon as my machine boots:
convenient to chose the OS I want to boot, with System Commander.

To each one, its own.
--
John Doue

John Doue wrote:

Personally, since my mouse in never far away than my machine, I trust an
USB mouth, especially since I can use it as soon as my machine boots:
convenient to chose the OS I want to boot, with System Commander.

Good point I hadn't thought of

"tc" wrote:

I have a Bluetooth mouse for one laptop. The computer finds and connects to
it automatically as soon as Bluetooth is running. They are no problem
whatsoever except they won't work until the o/s is loaded.

Which brand/model BT mouse do you have above?