Recently the Kirkland-based Bluetooth Special Interest Group, which oversees Bluetooth technology, celebrated the 28,000-member mark of companies who use its technology in their products.

Along with the milestone, the company has also announced its plans for next year to improve consumer experience by improving speed times, longer effective range, and the battery life.

Their long-term goals are to have Bluetooth in just about everything.

“You integrate it with your life,” Executive Director Mark Powell said. “You’ll know things about yourself that you didn’t know before.”

Originally starting as a wireless headset for phones, Bluetooth technology is now present in tens of thousands of products created and sold by member companies ranging from door locks and light switches to soccer balls and car systems. Three billion Bluetooth-enabled devices were shipped in 2014, with the hottest selling items wireless speakers and headphones.

As the company continues to expand its membership base, it’s also taken a new direction on how Bluetooth technology can improve people’s lives through what is called the Internet of Things (IoT), which refers to the network of products capable of collecting and exchanging data digitally.

Chairman Toby Nixon said that in practical terms it means being able to control your home’s lights, appliances, heating ventilation, thermostat and other electronics wirelessly through Bluetooth.

One specific example he gave are television sets. Traditionally used with an infrared, line-of-sight remote control, he said Bluetooth will enable users to control the device not just somewhere in the house outside of the living room, but anywhere in the world.

“It’s basically enabling people to control everything in their life from everywhere,” he said.

Other home-based products can include the sprinkler system, rain sensors, and outside lighting.

“Being able to reach the end of your property is a real benefit,” Nixon said.

A relatively new application, he added, are tags users can use to keep track of things such as your keys. If they’re lost, you can use your smartphone to track them down.

Another industry Bluetooth has the potential to radically transform is healthcare, where data collection speed and range can reduce unnecessary appointments. Powell also said that it will enable medical providers to receive vital data on patients quickly, especially for people with conditions where delayed treatment can make a difference in the outcome.

“You see weight scales with Bluetooth, thermometers, blood pressure meters, and the Bluetooth in those is used to synchronize your health carrier information and automatically load it up to database in cloud so a doctor or nurse can be notified if something unusual happens,” Nixon said.

Their goals for 2016 will allow such products by extending Bluetooth’s maximum distance between the user and the product itself.

“You can be farther away from a device and still be able to access it,” he said. “When we think about the internet of things we think of some kind of centralized unit in the home. It might be the same as your internet access point. It might be your computer. To the extent that it can see all the different devices around your house, it can service that kind of central controlling point. You don’t have to go to it but you might be on your smart phone from some place else in the house and someplace else in the world and be able to come in through this centralized device and be able to access all of the other devices in your home.”

The longer range is made possible by cranking up the power for the device and also encoding the signals so that the receiver is more sensitive and blocks out the noise coming from other electronic devices, all of which will be a large benefit to sports and fitness-related devices in which fast speed is needed to get data as quickly as possible.

“If you’re just trying to get from your headset to phone, power set is low,” Nixon said. “If you’re trying to transmit from home to home, multiple walls, that’s when you need higher power.”

The result of these improvement is a longer battery life for Bluetooth devices.

“It’s the simple fact that if you only have to have the radio half as long, you only lose half as much battery,” Nixon said. “I think about the higher speed mostly as making them last.”

With concerns over digital security growing in recent years, Powell said that they working to keep them compliant with all Federal Information Processing Standards (FIPS).

For more information about Bluetooth SIG, go to bluetooth.org.