Bluetooth Printer

Any printer can become a Bluetooth printer with the purchase of a Bluetooth printer adapter. Use your desktop PC, laptop, PDA, or even your mobile phone to connect to a printer wirelessly with one of these handy devices.

Bluetooth printer adapters can be purchased for use with a standard parallel port printer or with a USB printer and set up with ease. Just plug the adapter into the appropriate port and pair it with your Bluetooth enabled device. Then you can select the printer from a list just as you normally would and print away.

Since Bluetooth uses a radio-based communication, your printer doesn't have to be in a line of sight to the device you're printing from. Put it anywhere in the room or office that's convenient. In fact, it can even be in the cubicle next to yours. Bluetooth technology allows you to put the printer up to 10 meters (33 feet) away from the device it's paired with. You can even move the printer around without disrupting the connection.

If you've paired the adapter with a portable device such as a laptop, PDA, or mobile phone, you don't have to worry about going out of range. Once you're back in range, the connection will reestablish itself automatically without you needing to worry about the process.

The data transfer rates for a Bluetooth device allow you to reach a printing speed of up to 115 kbps.

Some Bluetooth adapters will come with a car adapter as well and a portable battery charger to make life easy on the go. You don't have to have a single dedicated Bluetooth printer sitting on a desk at home. You can bring your adapter with you and turn any printer into a temporary Bluetooth printer. Since your laptop, PDA, or mobile phone is already paired with the Bluetooth printer adapter, all you need to do is install the appropriate printer driver and you can use anyone's printer with ease.

Everything you need to turn your printer into a wireless Bluetooth printer can be purchased for $30 to $90. That should include the adapter itself along with a power cord or battery pack, the software to allow your system to recognize the adapter, and a setup guide to walk you through the simple process. However, you need to remember that for this to work, the device you wish to print from must be Bluetooth enabled.

Bluetooth printer adapters are available for standard operating systems such as Windows XP/2000/ME/98SE, PocketPC 2002/200, Palm 5.0/4.0, and Mac OS X.