Bluetooth Technology - Bluetooth A2DP and Music Phones

Cingular, Verizon Wireless and Sprint have all been selling music phones in the US for quite some time. However, until recently almost none of them offered the ability to transfer stereo audio via Bluetooth technology. Bluetooth stereo audio, or the Bluetooth Advanced Audio Distribution Profile (A2DP), is finally beginning to find its way into music phones sold in the US. In Europe, Bluetooth A2DP phones have caught on much more rapidly. There are over 75 models of phones that have integrated the Bluetooth A2DP profile.

So, what exactly is Bluetooth A2DP, and how does it work?

Devices that have Bluetooth A2DP allow users to transmit high quality audio to Bluetooth stereo headphones, Bluetooth stereo transceivers and any other device that supports A2DP. Bluetooth A2DP was developed to offer increased bandwidth over traditional Bluetooth profiles. Greater bandwidth levels are necessary to transmit high quality audio, such as stereo music.

Bluetooth technology’s bandwidth is split into two layers, a data layer and a voice layer. Cell phones and headsets use the voice layer, which is only a small portion of the total available bandwidth. A2DP devices use the much larger data layer in order to send high quality audio.

The voice layer offers a bandwidth of 64kbps, which is fine for cell phone use, but it is not nearly fast enough for transmitting stereo music. The data layer, which provides 723Kbps of bandwidth, is what A2DP uses to stream high bit rate stereo music.

So, now that we have a basic understanding of Bluetooth A2DP, let’s take a look at one of the latest phones to support it.

The new Motorola Q™, or Moto Q, is the first Windows Mobile® based Smartphone to offer support for Bluetooth stereo headphones. Pairing the Q with Bluetooth headphones is supposedly very simple. To pair:

Set the headphones to discoverable mode
Choose the device
Add the headphones as a stereo headset

Unfortunately, acceptance of Bluetooth A2DP has been extremely slow for phones sold in the US. As a result, there aren’t many mainstream phones to point out. However, as more A2DP compatible phones become available in the US, we will be sure to let you know.

Motorola Q

Posted July 26, 2006 by BlueTomorrow.com Editorial Staff

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