Bluetooth? Help? - Simple question

[imablackhat]

Yeah well, I realized with Bluetooth you can hook up a USB adapter to your PC and somehow get online with wireless bluetooth with your PDA without it draining battery (from what people tell me). I am wondering on buying a bluetooth dongle, I want it to go far range, like all over my house. Except I don't know which one to buy or where to buy one from online in the United States! I also don't know what bluetooth version I have on my phone (XDA IIs), ehhh someone help me out? ;)

EDIT - would this be good 100m, would it work with my device? http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16833130023

[kcchen]

To achieve 100m, both devices probably need to support the extended range. The BA is only 10m... hardware constrained.

Basically, your PC will be able to send signal to 100m, but the BA will only be able to send a signal 10m.

I may be wrong...

[imablackhat]

I have an XDA IIs, but I looked at some specs here http://www.expansys.com/product.asp?code=I-MATE_III, and towards the bottom it says Bluetooth class 2, the usb dongle I was looking at was Class 1, whats the difference? can I still use it?

[buzz_lightyear]

Class 1 has 20dbm output power.
Class 2 has 4dbm output power.

buzz

[imablackhat]

but that still leaves me with my question, can i use class 1 bluetooth 1.1 on a class 2 bluetooth 1.2 device

[kcchen]

Yes, Class 1 and Class 2 devices should be compatible. Tthe range limitation will be the Class 2 radio. Can't imagine the RF from a Class 1 headset bombarding your brain... With respect to BT 1.2, it should also be compatible but again you'll lose any enhancements (I think there are some security related improvements) the more recent revision offers.