Bluetooth

Jeff has seen old time radios that have had a bluetooth receiver put in them so you can use them as a cool, retro bluetooth speaker. Leo says those a really cool idea. Is there such thing as a bluetooth extender? Leo says there is, but bluetooth is designed to be short-range. WiFi is a lot better and has five times the range. There are plenty extenders though that boost the range. Miccus makes a bluetooth extender with 160-foot range for $40.

Check out these old time radio bluetooth receivers at Wavelengthantiques.com

Jon complains that U2 will start playing when he puts down his phone and gets into the car. It's very annoying. Leo suspects that it's the free U2 album that Apple gave to everyone a few years ago. It's called Songs of Innocence and it's probably in iCloud. Apple created a special tool to delete it, he can get it here. But the larger issue is that when he gets rid of it, his Bluetooth audio in his car will just play something else.

Matt wants to know if there's a Bluetooth wireless printer and what's the best one? Leo says that most of the ones that promise Bluetooth connectivity use the Cloud to print. So that's not going to work. It's possible that a sole Bluetooth connection may not be possible due to the bandwidth of transmitting data.  Brother makes a laser printer. The HP4650 is a portable Bluetooth printer. 

Ron has a Channel Master Play Plus DVR and he notices that his voice-activated remote will cause popups of suggestions. What's going on? Leo says that the remote has Bluetooth LE (low energy) and it's possible it's picking up errant Bluetooth signals if around 30 feet. He can maybe dumb down the Bluetooth by turning off scanning. 

Cheryl has a Motorola Moto G6, and she wants to use a YubiKey for password security. But her phone doesn't have NFC. What can she do? Leo says that she can get a Bluetooth authenticator key like YubiKey that works with Google's Authenticator app. The Google Titan Security Key is the one to get. It's $50. There's a USB and Bluetooth key for one price. So it'll work with her laptop too.

When Tom turns Bluetooth on after having been turned off for awhile, tons of apps start opening up on his phone. What's happening? Leo says that backgrounded apps automatically terminate after a short period. Leo recommends letting the phone manage his apps for him. He doesn't need a third party app to kill them — he should just let the phone do it.

Fiona is thinking of getting a tablet because she can add it for $20 a month to her cell phone service. Which should she get? Leo recommends the iPad. They start at $329, with Black Friday deals this week of under $200. She's retired and on a budget, though. Leo says she can go with Android, but any tablet under $200 is going to be pretty cheap. She should try and get an iPad on a Black Friday deal. They should be good through Monday. And she should pick up a Bluetooth keyboard, too. Anker makes one for around $25.00.

Barry's Bluetooth connection in his Infinity keeps dropping his iPhones when he's listening to Amazon music. Leo says that Bluetooth is really finicky, but it's all we've got. It shouldn't happen, but chances are, the problem is on Infinity's end and not Apple's. It could also be an issue with Amazon Music. He should try using iTunes and see if the problem is repeated. He should also check his app settings that could change the behavior. Maybe the app thinks he's getting a call and it's "ducking" the audio.