Bluetooth vs. AirPlay — the Differences

Most of the older technology eventually goes away and is replaced with something newer. We said goodbye to the back then popular infrared port in mobile phones. Bluetooth became the standard, and Apple came up with AirPlay 2.

Bluetooth was created back in 1994 by Ericsson. Initially, it was a wireless replacement for the serial wired interface known as RS-232. Previously, it was primarily used for making phone calls using wireless headsets, but not the kind we know today. A single headset could not even play music (unless it had an A2DP profile). It is an open standard for wireless communication linking two or more electronic devices.

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Bluetooth

Indeed, interesting why Bluetooth is called what it is. The Czech Wikipedia states that the name Bluetooth is derived from the English name of the Danish king Harald Bluebeard, who ruled in the 10th century. There are already several versions of Bluetooth which differ in data transfer speeds. For example, version 1.2 was able to handle 1 Mbit/s. Version 5.0 can already do 2Mbit/s. The commonly quoted range is 10 meters. The latest version is Bluetooth 5.3 and was introduced in July last year.

AirPlay

AirPlay is a proprietary set of wireless communication protocols developed by Apple. It allows streaming and initially sends audio…