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Originally Posted by momofmine  Like, if the bluetooth is three orders less than a cell phone, what does that mean? Because you aren't talking on your cell phone all the time, but if you were riding in a car that had the bluetooth thing, would it be transmitting or whatever the whole time? So, even if it was less, would there be more overall exposure because it is going all the time?
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"Three orders of magnitude" means a factor of 1000 (10 x 10 x 10, or 10^3).
A lot of Bluetooth appliances--headsets, for example--are battery powered, so I would expect them to try to save power when not actively in use (although I'm certainly not an expert on their design). The upshot would be reduced RF exposure from the part of the system that is closest to the body.
They're really low-power devices, though. If one assumes that a typical microwave oven leaks about a watt (per unit area) at a distance of a foot, which might not be too off the mark, using a Class 2 (2.5 mW) Bluetooth headset at full blast would be something like standing 20 feet from that oven. The base unit in the car probably operates at even lower power so that it doesn't have to sort out replies from adjacent vehicles.
This might be cold comfort if one is suspicious of microwave ovens and similar radio-frequency sources, but as a long-time radio hobbyist, I file the exposure as pretty low indeed. I imagine I'm taking in about as much RF energy from the wireless router as I type.
. Really, I have a horrible sense of direction, so I guess for me any bad is outweighed by the good.
