Will 802.11 Kill Bluetooth?

joshwa writes "NYTimes (free reg. required) has an article about the struggles of the Bluetooth folks to fine-tune their technology and get the costs down far enough. The most interesting part is that analysts seem to think that 802.11's (what is this new 'Wi-Fi' moniker?) growing popularity will overshadow Bluetooth's entrance into the marketplace, and will beat Bluetooth into the small devices market. Can 802.11 actually work in a Palm or a cell phone?" The article, IMHO, misses the difference in uses - if you've got a small device that you want to conserve power on, and only communicate small distances, Bluetooth's ideal. If you've got a lot of power, a la a notebook computer, and want to communicate 150 ft., then 802.11 is what you want. Imagine that: Different uses! Different standards! Amazing!

Comments

Yup, and here's why..

[Bowie J. Poag]

Somebody turned me onto this page that talks about how a group of guys are making a mission out of setting up localized, free wireless access to the Internet, with the ultimate goal being able to fire up your laptop anywhere within your city and get on the net for free. All it takes is a couple hundred dollars (which isnt much when shared between 20 people who pitch in, initially) and a guy who controls anything as meager as a DSL line willing to "donate" some of his bandwidth to the antenna.

If anything, stuff like this will kill Bluetooth from a purely VHS vs. Beta sort of way. When it comes down to a fight between popular acceptance versus quality of technology, popular acceptance always wins.

Cheers,

Bluetooth does different things.

[Neorej]

And I like them,

I went to Ericsson once where they showed us a bunch of stuff working over bluetooth (vending machines, connections to pda's, laptops, internet radios, web pads and overhead beamers) and I must say I was impressed.

Interference may be an issue though but in the long run I think a technology like Bluetooth (not necesarily Bluetooth itself) will reach a large market. At some point in the future we will all probably have some fiber/DSL X megabit line into our home which is hooked up to some routing thing that sends the whole stream into the air thru some shortish range technology. From that point on we can access that broadband line from every Bluetooth enables device in our home. You don't need a high power 150' range wireless lan for that, you'd just upset the neighbourhood then.

Wireless lan may be able to do the same thing but as far as I know it's probably going to be a lot more expensive, Bluetooth and wireless lan are 2 different things (which was one of the first things I heard from the Ericsson people) with different uses. The Bluetooth organisation thingy whatever comittee or something wants to get the price of a chip under $5 so practically every manufacturer will throw in bluetooth, if only as a marketing thing. I don't see that happening with wireless lan.

Besides all that LAN's Ethernet, AFAIK, and Bluetooth makes individual connections to different devices on different frequencies, again AFAIK. Bluetooth just seems a lot more efficient to hook up devices that don't need a gazillion bits to operate at an acceptable level.

Ok, I'll stop ranting now, it's the end of the working day and I can't say I'm feeling very coherent :-)

Re:Hard to tell (Ack! Ack! Microsoft ATTACKS)

[Locutus]

Remember those "friendly" aliens from Mars in "Mars Attacks"? Swap in Bill Gates for each alien and then think about what's the fuss about Bluetooth....

The problem is this: Microsoft is dis'ing Bluetooth and pushing 802.11 for all the wrong reasons. 802.11 is a good technology but it forces the small device( ie Palms ) to be bigger. WinCE devices are already FAT because the OS and the plethora of capabilities pre-packaged. This is why Microsoft is pushing 802.11 over Bluetooth. It takes care of two big headaches it has.....Palm based handhelds are becoming the place were users keep their data and the computer/network is a backup or copy of the PDA. This isn't what Microsoft wants because it wants to own your data and charge you to access it. By pushing for the death of Bluetooth it stalls Palms move into wireless, leaves Palm handhelds stranded by requiring it be "tethered" to a computer they can keep track of, and gets another shot at moving your data into it's hands instead of yours.

Another technology attacked to preserve the almighty Microsoft corporation.....