Heart and Mind

Phones Without Cords and Blue Teeth

We've already talked quite a bit on this blog about the role mobile phones play in the changing times, but my latest phone device—a wireless Bluetooth headphone—has inspired me to comment further on the art of being wireless. I'm quite blown away by the experience of using this Bluetooth peripheral.

Well, I won't get into detail about the entire history of phone cords, because we've already done that here, but we should re-cap very quickly in an effort to get us to take inventory of where we're at.

So, as you know, when I was young, there was no such thing as a cordless phone in your house. You wanted to be on the phone, you had to be connected to the wall. Most phones stretched a few feet and the closest thing people had to freedom was the big dangling cord that was on the main phone in the house. That one was usually on your kitchen phone and it could stretch quite a bit and allow you to sometimes walk all the way down the hall or perhaps even into another room, where you might be able to talk in privacy if you could partially shut the door over the cord. Then we upgraded to the new cordless phones, which tended to be, if you had one, just one per-house and it wasn't even the main "kitchen" phone, because they completely sucked. They were unreliable and made lots of noise after the batteries ceased to be brand new. And they had big ugly antennas.

Somewhere along the way, those phones became better and more commonplace in the house, and they replaced the long-corded phones for the most part. Also somewhere in there came the great grand-daddy of today's mobile phone, the "car phone." The car phone gave way to blocky, brick-like portable cell phones, and with years of technological upgrades, the mobile phones became more reliable, cheaper, and smaller.

So, here we are, living in the new millennium, with our mobile phones and cords are completely unnecessary. We while we may still have dropped calls here and there and, hence, there's room for improvement, you've got to admit the modern mobile phones are pretty darn reliable. The proof is in the fact that many people these days—particularly young, apartment-renting types who don't see their dwellings as permanent beyond, at best, a few years—don't even have a landline. Wires are done!

Well...there's one more wire that sometimes pops up. The wire to your clip-on ear-piece for when you don't want to hold the phone up to your ear. You know, as mobile phones have gotten more commonplace, we tend to use them no matter what you're doing. In other words, it's no longer about talking on the phone when you're sitting around your house. Who knows what the heck you'll be doing or where you'll be the next time your phone rings? And there's a major drawback to the otherwise beneficial fact that the phones are tiny these days: you can't comfortably cradle them on your shoulder because there's nothing there to "grip!" And, beyond that, it's illegal to drive while holding the phone up to your ear. So that's where the clip-on ear piece comes in.

The little ear piece that comes with your phone has a cord and this is where I was going to draw the line with all the "cordless alternative"stuff. I reasoned as such...

Here we were in late 2006, and we can drive from one side of the country to the other and never have to worry about not being near our phone. Our phones come with us, because we have no wires to them. I simply do not need to get a wireless ear-piece to the tune of 60-something-bucks or more to have the privilege of not having a wire from the phone to my ear! Why? It's obvious why. Because the phone is with me, anyway, so I don't need mobility from myself. If I have to walk to the other side of the room, I simply take the phone with me. I had no desire too buy a bluetooth device. It was too much of a luxury and not enough of a necessity.

Well, my wife saw otherwise. You see, she is one of those types of mobile phone talkers who likes to talk with the little ear-piece all the time, whether she's got her hands full or not. Be that as it is, she was running into problems because the babys like to play with cord and rip it out of her ear. So I told her we should get her a Bluetooth for Christmas.

Well, being that she was going to be getting one and I had some people looking for some gift ideas for me, I figured, "What the heck! I'll have them get me a Bluetooth, too." It was the perfect "gift": something that might be fun, but I wouldn't necessarily see fit to treat myself to one. So we both got our Bluetooth devices.

I am simply amazed at how wrong I was. It is so much more convenient than I ever would have imagined to not have that cord attached to my phone, even when the phone is already attached to me. It's crazy liberating! I never realized how much that wire got caught on things—or how much finagling I did to avoid it getting snagged on stuff—until it wasn't there and I could suddenly strap seat-belts across my chest or turn my head to any angle I saw fit.

Beyond that, it's now truly "hands-free," which is what those devices are called. Sure, I've been calling them "ear-pieces," but the industry calls them "hands-free devices." You see, because the cord was there, it was rare—unless I was sitting at a desk—that the phone was not being held in one of my hands. It was convenient not having to hold it up to my ear, but I did used to walk around with it in my hand because it didn't really work with the phone coming out of my pocket. There wasn't enough slack or it would get caught on stuff.

I even used to sometimes hold it when I drove. I would sometimes place it on my lap or on the chair next to me when I drove, and it seemed uncomfortable.

The Bluetooth hands-free is quite amazing. I suspect it is no longer a luxury. I would go get another one if this one broke. I've become hooked. And because it's got things like voice dialing, auto answering, and other nifty features, you often don't even need to take your phone out to use it. Leave it in your pocket or in your bag or on the counter across the room and you'll be fine. Awesome.

Now, that much said, there are also drawbacks and it's still a system with room for improvement. A few that come to mind are:

• If you intend on using it, it's yet another thing you have to carry around
  with you all the time—add it to the list with your wallet, keys, cellphone, etc.


• It's another thing to keep charged.


• It's another thing you could lose—and it's small enough to lose easily.


• You look like an idiot when you speak on one because it looks like you're
  talking to yourself.


• You still have to "reach into your pocket" and find the earpiece
  when you get a call, if you're not wearing it.


• Although you could avoid the last concern by simply wearing
  it all the time, as some do, you'll look either like a) a pretentious jerk
  or b) a cyborg cyber-dork.

Funny...how often does it happen that you can be one of those two things? They seem like polar opposites, don't they?

Well, despite the negatives, the Bluetooth hands-free is very cool. I vow to never be one of those people who wears it all the time, but being that it so convenient, I'll never say never.

I hope to never write a blog entry about how I've become one of those people.

posted by Steve @ 6:28 PM