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HP Introduces A Bluetooth Printer
man_ls writes: "I found this on C|Net, it's an HP Printer that also supports Bluetooth. You can read about it here. Not that the Bluetooth will do anything except interfere with 802.11 wireless networks, but it's an interesting feature to have." Actually, Bluetooth shouldn't interfere with 802.11 except in confusing product marketing, right? Nice to see that at least one printer will actually hit the market with a short-range radio interface instead of wire (inconvenient) or IR (poor interoperability).
Bluetooth does interfere with 802.11- they are both using the same 2.4 GHz band (as a bunch of other things too) but they do interfere- they don't completely knock each other out, but they will degrade each other's range and total throughput. I wish I had a good reference for it- my information comes from a talk I heard from a guy on the Bluetooth committee. That 2.4 GHz band is a free-for-all. Telephones, Bluetooth, 802.11, wireless cameras, and whatever the next big thing is. You only have so much bandwidth, and you have to share.
As a cable to something like a printer- yep, that's the whole idea behind bluetooth- as a way to eliminate wires, and I'm sure we'll be seeing more of it. Eliminating wires is just the beginning- the real amazing stuff will come when things are truly interconnected and it's cheap- cheap really is the selling point behind bluetooth. The manufacturers I've talked to have a goal of about a $5.00 cost for the bluetooth solution. When we get there (802.11 is a more complex solution that is aimed for the higher end, and that is getting pretty cheap- the cards are way under $100, which means that the chipsets are probably under $20). Aside from the irritating marketing potential, having everthing interconnected is the way things are going- where you don't have to worry about synchronizing your Palm Pilot and your phone with your computer, they do it automatically when you're nearby.
Bluetooth has the potential to really change the way computers work with everything- we just have to see if it will really happen. It's not the only thing that we need- and it won't happen tomorrow.