Reference
Bluetooth glossary
The handful of terms that actually change how you search. No specification numbers, no acronym soup for its own sake.
Received Signal Strength Indicator
RSSI
RSSI is the strength of a Bluetooth signal as your phone receives it, reported in dBm and always negative. Closer to zero mea…
Bluetooth Low Energy
BLE
Bluetooth Low Energy is the low-power mode of Bluetooth that lets a device broadcast small packets of information continuousl…
How often a device broadcasts
Advertising interval
The advertising interval is the gap between a device’s broadcasts. Short intervals make a device easy to find; long ones save…
Rotating Bluetooth identifiers
MAC randomisation
MAC randomisation is a privacy feature that makes a device change the identifier it broadcasts on a schedule, so it cannot be…
Ultra-wideband
UWB
Ultra-wideband is a separate radio technology that measures distance by timing how long a signal takes to travel, giving cent…
The older streaming mode
Bluetooth Classic
Bluetooth Classic is the original mode, designed for continuous data like audio. It behaves differently from Low Energy and i…
How loudly a device broadcasts
Transmit power
Transmit power is how strongly a device broadcasts. It varies enormously between devices, which is why you can never compare …
Apple’s crowd-sourced finding
Find My network
The Find My network uses hundreds of millions of Apple devices to anonymously report sightings of lost items, which is how an…
The battery in most tags
Coin cell
A coin cell is the flat button battery, usually a CR2032, that powers most Bluetooth tags. It is why a tag can broadcast for …
What blocks a Bluetooth signal
Attenuation
Attenuation is the weakening of a radio signal as it passes through material. At 2.4 GHz, water and metal are the worst offen…
How phones warn you
Unwanted tracking alert
Unwanted tracking alerts are notifications from your phone telling you that a tracker not registered to you appears to be tra…
A device that only broadcasts
Beacon
A beacon is a Bluetooth device whose only job is to announce itself. Tags, shop sensors and asset markers are all beacons, t…
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