emac and bluetooth

[concertina54]

Hi everyone,

I've just ordered an emac online and as a wait for my order to come through I'm contemplating adding bluetooth to the order.

I have a couple of questions since this will be my first mac. First is there an alternative to bluetooth that I can get? My main reason for getting it will be to connect two things. First my Palm, will blue tooth work for this and secondly my Altimaster Neptune. The second device is for skydiving, it's an altimeter/log that records statistics of my jumps and it has an infared port on it to beam the stats to a computer.

Do you know if bluetooth will be good for this? And if it will work for my palm and Neptune?

thanks.

 

[mikeyredk]

if you add bluetooth i recommend adding the wireless mouse package. its $99 for bluetooth adaptor, BT mouse, BT keyboard.

 

[yippy]

Bluetooth will only work if the devices specificaly say they do. It will not work for the infra-red thing, that will need a special USB adapter. Check online for that.

 

[concertina54]

So what are infrared options for the computer. And whats the difference between infrared and bluetooth?

 

[mikeyredk]

infrared is line of sight. Bluetooth is like wifi but personal you can run many things with bluetooth, such as; phones, mice, pdas, etc... the only requirement is that both devices have bluetooth. I would recommend you getting bluetooth anyway since it is built-in you can only have it bto or have a separate dongle. but, i recommend have it built-in

 

[concertina54]

for the neptune the instructions say.

You must use a computer with an IrDA interface.

Is this bluetooth?

 

[mikeyredk]

see that red line coming out that is is the irda port. You won't find that on most modern day computers you might want to consider an upgrade if you can.

 

[ChrisFromCanada]

infrared is an old technology and bluetooth is much newer. Almost every computer manufacturer has given up on infrared and gone for bluetooth mainly due to the line of sight problem.
For example who would want a mouse that will only work when pointed at a infrared receiver?

 

[neoelectronaut]

Quite simply, if I was given the option of whether I wanted internal Bluetooth in my eMac when I ordered it, I would have taken it.

I don't need it now but whenever I'm in the market for a new keyboard or mouse I would have most definitely have gotten the wireless Apple mouse or keyboard.

Finally, I may add on Bluetooth later on, but man, I'm not so hot about a huge dongle hanging out the side of my computer.

 

[concertina54]

Okay so it looks like my neptune only supports infra red, as the unit is really small, and there was not enough room to put bluetooth in it.

Does anyone have suggestions on what infra red products I can buy and make work with my new mac?