What is the real range of BlueTooth and Wi-Fi?

I did rough tests on BlueTooth modules of both Class I and II. I found the short range unit very crisply 10 meters of just less. The higher power one seemed well over 30 meters, even through an intervening concrete wall.

I have tested the Pro XBee's from MaxStream. They are very much as they describe them. They say up to a mile. We ran a test putting one unit on a car, and the other 1) at chest level, 2) at ground level. We captured the stream from a GPS module, and retransmitted it to a recording laptop. Then we looked at the stream of data for the coordinates which were the farthest away, but with the transmission still in tact. Then we used google earth to plot and thus measure the distance. In the first case, we got a maximum distance of 1.2 miles. MaxStream claims up to 1 mile. In the second case we got .49 miles.

You might want to look at the MaxStream web site. They explain "the fresnel effect" about clearance of antenna from surrounding objects. At 2.4GHz (frequency domain of all the items you listed) you need about 3.5+ meters clearance (at both ends) from anything around the antenna for maximum range. Probably the shorter range results you experienced were due to this antenna placement.

-- Randy M. Dumse