Bluetooth Familiarity: Methods of Calculation, Applications and Limitations

Bluetooth is a short-range wireless protocol by which enabled devices can exchange content. It is increasingly routinely included in a wide variety of devices from home computers to portable laptops, PDAs, mobile phones, keyboards, mice and headphones. Bluetooth, although originally devised to support content exchange, can be used for much more than this, for example, Bluetooth familiarity. By monitoring the presence of nearby devices Nicolai popularised the concept of familiarity within the Bluetooth space and the work demonstrated that social context could be drawn from general encounters with devices.