Tech Talk: The beauty of Bluetooth

On July 1, it will be illegal for adults to talk on a cell phone in California while driving unless the driver has a “hands-free” solution. Teens won’t be able to use cell phones at all while driving.

That’s why it’s a good time to check out Bluetooth headsets, which wirelessly connect a cell phone to an ear piece. With it, you can talk to someone without holding a handset to your ear. And with the speech recognition feature of many cell phones, you can call someone by saying the person’s name.

Bluetooth headsets connect a phone to a headset via a radio signal that has a range of 33 feet. They come in a couple of flavors. One type folds over your ear, while the other fits in your ear. They’re physically bigger than iPod headphones because they have batteries and radios inside them in addition to a speaker, and they usually fit into only one ear because of safety issues when both ears are flooded with noise.

Prices range from $40 for a Jabra BT125 headset to $99 for a Plantronics Voyager 520. The difference is that the Plantronics model and others like it have noise cancellation, which reduces background noise so you can hear what’s being said and your caller can hear what you’re saying, even with music in the background.

It’s amazing how small they can come. The Cardo Systems S-800 ($40) weighs 0.38 ounces. The Motorola H680 ($80) weighs 0.42 ounces. The H680 doesn’t have a USB connector (universal serial bus connector for gadgets