Bluetooth (Wireless) Tower Speakers

(tcluv85) · (tcluv85) **Join Date: Jan 2004** 06-01-2004, 10:56 AM

Has anyone heard of bluetooth tower speaker technology and is anyone using it yet?

I hear of people drilling holes in towers and having issues wiring tower lights and speakers. So I was thinking it would be cool to have some sort of bluetooth or wireless device for tower speakers, but can't seem to find any information on the web about them.

Please let me know if anyone has tried this or knows of places that carry this type of setup. Thank you in advance.

-Laci

(monstertower) · (monstertower) **Join Date: Mar 2003** 06-01-2004, 11:05 AM

We looked at the idea of wireless tower speakers but you would still have to power the speakers since wireless speakers would have to be battery powered. Figured if your running wires for power you may as well just power the speakers with a big ass amp in the boat and run the wires directly. My $0.02

(colorider) · (colorider) **Join Date: Jun 2001** 06-01-2004, 11:05 AM

you can get a wireless setup, but it is not going to be bluetooth technology. Check out www.partsexpress.com.
they have a few wireless speaker options.

(jklein) · (jklein) **Join Date: May 2001** 06-01-2004, 11:42 AM

I think what's more interesting than making the speakers wireless is making the head unit's remote wireless. I'm not talking IRDA, but 2.4Ghz Bluetooth or WiFi (although seems like overkill for WiFi). Anyway, you could easily put remotes around your boat, and embed one in the handle so the rider could actually control the volume, track etc..

Bluetooth will cover a radius of about 1400 feet max, so at about 80 feet from the boat, a handle remote would work great. The Bluetooth radios are also really low power, so a couple of AA's would last a long time in the handle. You might even get away with a large watch style battery. Each Bluetooth connection can form its own pico-net so multiple boats will not contol each other's equipment by accident.

(chrzanowski5) · (chrzanowski5) **Join Date: Aug 2002** 06-01-2004, 12:08 PM

I think bluetooth only has a range of 30 feet --- not 1400 ... it does you very little battery power though.

JC

(toyotafreak) · (toyotafreak) **Join Date: Sep 2003** 06-01-2004, 1:30 PM

Why not bluetooth the Perfect Pass controls from the wakeboard handle? Just kidding. Really.

(jklein) · (jklein) **Join Date: May 2001** 06-01-2004, 2:01 PM

It's a frequency hopper at 2.4Ghz and it depends on the power. At 100mW at 20dBm you can get theoretically 100 meters in perfect conditions. However most of the class 1 radios have a sesitivity to about 17dBm and only put out about 63mW not a true 100. Open air line of sight (real world) you can get 1500 feet (with lots of retries). That's about the max. It's really the same as a WiFi 802.11b radio that runs at the same frequency and power. The only difference is that the 802.11b radio is direct sequence not frequency hopping.

However, the Class 2 Bluetooth radio at 2.5mW is much lower power and has a range of about 10 meters. That would do quite nicely.