Got mesel a nice shiny Motorola V3 the other day and went to get a bluetooth headset.
Costco are doing Nokia ones for £42.
However, and here's where I'm puzzled. They (info desk) reckon they're not compatible.
I thought bluetooth was bluetooh and the whole idea is for them all to talk to each other.
So is there a compatibilty issue or was I fed a load of twonk ?

There are differing frequencies but I'm not sure as to whether incompatabilities exist... I doubt it personally!

Bluetooth *IS* bluetooth and the Nokia one does work with other manufacturer devices.

However, some manufacturers have a slightly "non standard" BT stack which won't inter-operate.

Buy one and try it - if it doesn't work, you can always take it back.

Stephen

PS the product forums on www.expansys.com are normally pretty good for this sort of information.

Bluetooth is a layered protocol. There is the basic radio stuff like frequency etc. It's analogous to bluetooth devices all being able to make sounds that they can all hear.

However, communications between bluetooth devices depends on profiles. These are formal definitions of how to communicate. Think of them as being languages.

If your headset talks one language, and the phone talks another, then you are out of luck. This is why some phones do not work with some headsets.

These days most headsets can talk most if not all of the "languages" (or profiles) that the phones can speak. But not always. Hence the compatibility issues.

Hope that helps
Cheers
Richard

Nokia has always implemented the Bluetooth protocol differently. I don't know whether it's just plain awkwardness or whether they wished to try and sell only their own products.

It's meant to be an open system but a lot of Bluetooth PC dongles just can't cope with the Nokia format.
As already said they implement the stack their own way.
Their own PC dongle costs a bunch just to make work with the phone.
Some like Expansys claim their product works with the phones but I've bought two and they don't !! What they do work with is second party software not Nokias software, so they will not refund on the goods.