Bluetooth is a wireless connectivity protocol, or in layman’s terms, a way to connect a couple of electronic devices to trade information back and forth without wires. The advent of Bluetooth and other wireless protocols has proven to be immensely helpful in quickly passing loads of information without the use of cumbersome wires. We’ve seen Bluetooth used to improve the usability of cellular phones, traditionally wired communications units such as GPS receivers and medical equipment, computer mouses and keyboards, and even as a replacement for infra-red in things like remote controls. In fact, you know the Nintendo Wii? It uses a motion sensor to determine where the controller is at any given time, but both the Wii controller, and the Playstation 3 controller send the button-pushing information back to the game console with Bluetooth wireless technology. A lot of the wireless routers out these days use Bluetooth as well.

In order to connect a desktop computer or a laptop to a Bluetooth enabled router or other peripheral, the computer needs to be equipped with a Bluetooth adapter. After all, an empty USB port is designed to connect to wires. A lot of wireless mouses and keyboards come with a USB Bluetooth adapter.

Most of the laptops being developed recently actually come with built in Bluetooth adapters included in the basic setup. Desktop computers are coming with built in adapters more and more these days, as well, though, for obvious reasons, the need to include Bluetooth adapters for laptops has taken higher priority.