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Palm Bluetooth SDIO Card Available
boredadmin writes "It looks like Palm have finally released (a few weeks ago) their Bluetooth SDIO card to allow SD-Slot equipped Palms communicate with cellphones, PC's, access-points, etc. Now if only I could find somewhere in this sad little corner of the world that I'm stuck in that actually stocks them."
Try http://www.expansys.com ,who seem to have them in stock in the UK and will ship everywhere.
- Paul
Yep I got mine a month ago from Expansys in the UK.
Next day delivery, ordered on the day they were announced. They were even cheaper than the high street price (now that's its in the high street), despite them being amoung first to market.
Congrats to them!
Here with a link to sales info outside the US here.
Bluetooth is also a channel-hog; it uses a _lot_ of the available channels in the 2.4GHz spectrum, and jumps around between them like nothing else. Good luck trying to run bluetooth and 802.11b in the same room.
"I think it would be a good idea" Gandhi, on Western Civilisation
I mean if the range is that small why not just plug the damn thing in and do it in 1/10 of the time?
;-)
No more unplugging/plugging and no "where's the damned cable?" anymore? And because it works
they need to start working on wireless recharging. has anyone seen a palm accessory that recharges the battery from kinetic energy of being carried around, like those watches? would this be feasible?
For when the people you chat with are sitting 6 feet away.®
heaven forbid that you're an existing palm user, with, say, a m100, or a IIIex (the cheap model), that were the last models to come out before the SDIO slot was standard. i guess this is the "killer hardware" to get people to upgrade. I'd still like to see a bluetooth "chip" that i can plug into the serial port of my m100.
there's a serial -> USB adaptor.... i'm sure that + a bluetooth card from Apple + lots of time and effort = a usable solution. of course; it won't work with any of palm's new spiffy bluetooth apps, such as "bluechat" (aim over bluetooth, essentially), and blueboard (networked "whiteboard" app)
personally what i'd like to see is a USB bluetooth adaptor like apple's d-link one, that has the driver software on it (linux, mac, windows) on 64k of flash memory, + java aim/jabber chat, lynx web browser, and dhcp built in. plug it into your ipaq, laptop, or school computer.
moox. for a new generation.
because A) most mac users don't have a serial port to connect to (or too cheap to buy a usb connector) their palm b) wireless is handy if you have a laptop in general c) wires suck, especially dongles. d) bluetooth is i think 7 megabits, which is faster than serial/paralell's 116500 bps. most likely it'll be faster.
:)
and hell, wireless is just so much cooler
moox. for a new generation.
d) bluetooth is i think 7 megabits, which is faster than serial/paralell's 116500 bps
Bzzzt. I'm too lazy to actually download the specs right now, but from prior reading I'm fairly confident in saying that the theoretical max bandwidth is more like one megabit per second. In practice I think it maxes out around 720 kbps, which should still be able to at least beat the serial port, so at least you're correct in that respect. Just wanted to point this out.
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and there are some cool applications. For instance, Nokia is planning a Bluetooth headset piece so there will be no wires connecting cell phone to headset. I can't wait to see that in action.
If you were speaking out of your own experience, you would know that BT and WLAN can coexist fairly peacefully. The BT protocol is more robust compared to WLAN, but WLAN uses 10 times more power.
The only thing to watch out for is heavy BT traffic close to a WLAN base station, but that's about it.
--Bud
ah. sorry. i've never been particularly clear on what exactly is a megabit - recently i read that 1 megabit = 100kbps, of course, that's probably, kiloBYTEs, but yeah. 7 somthing. thanks again, you've helped clear up alot of things. although now i'm not so impressed by my "3 megabit" cable broadband connection ;-)
moox. for a new generation.
Yes, they theoretically interfere. But every person who's actually tried it with real devices in the real world knows it's not actually a problem.
/non issue/. It's just FUD putting people off for no good reason and it's very disappointing to see - BlueTooth in the US is lagging as it is - it's a great technology and I'm very happy with it (I'm just glad I'm in Europe and can take advantage of greater BlueTooth product avalibility!).
I wish people who've never tried it would stop making such a big deal out of the fact that they happen to cross frequencies - it's REALLY such a
Bluetooth (on my Palm to T39) works very happly with my G4 PowerBook w/ Airport on my lap - neither experience any noticeable problems or cut out.
Both protocals are designed to cope with interference. It's not as if you 'suddenly lose a connection' or 'your bandiwidth suddenly drops' - nothing noticeable happens (network activity is fine and the PDA->Phone interaction is flawless).
Everyone who's actually used them outside of a lab says the same thing. If you had 100 bluetooth devices in the same room, all broadcasting at once, then I wouldn't be too suprised to see a little network slowdown, but even at that extreme, life would be bearable.
I've got a Sharp Zaurus and this would suit me fine (much less power drain than wireless Ethernet, and it could talk to my T38 'phone). Does anyone know any technical reason why this card wouldn't work on the Zaurus apart from lack of software (which can be fixed)? I take it that the Palm SD slot is the same as the Zaurus...
Ericsson have had a BlueTooth hands free for months (maybe even a year now).
:)
:)
:). Steep at 150 UKP though!
They have 3 different models, the first one had technical probs, there is a new one which looks identical but fixes the bugs
There is a third one which looks like a set of stereo headphones, but it attaches to a battery back around your waist (so you may as well just get a normal hands free and stick your phone in your pocket). This one is lame
My boss has one of the new, good kind (and I will two just as soon as my flat mate and my tenant both pay me the rent the are owe
Does anyone else think that $129 is an absurd price for this? I thought the entire idea of Bluetooth was that it was going to be so cheap it could just be integrated into everything. Looks like we're still going to have to wait a while for that.
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Just download the Bluetooth software from Apple and viola! Palm Desktop will automagically sync with your Palm!
Apple's done a wonderful job with their software, I even got it to pair with my SonyEricsson! No third party drivers required! Cool stuff...
Correct. Gross bandwidth is about 1 megabit/sec. But of course, there's overhead for the protocol which leaves you with about 720 kbit/sec theoretical max on an asynchronous link, or 432 kpbs (each way) on a synchronous link.
And why use Bluetooth? Because I can get an internet connection on my handheld, via my cell phone, without my phone ever leaving my pocket.
For you IMDB buffs, the ericsson model was of course featured in the Tomb Raider movie.
---- Den ene knappen er powerknapp, den andre er Bender voice knapp "Bite My Shiny Metal Ass"
I *have* run Bluetooth and 802.11b in the same room. No problems, but I'm one guy, and can barely walk and chew gum. :)
But by the same argument, good luck trying to run 802.11b and a microwave.
WhatEVA
The example of a Palm syncing to a desktop is not a great use of Bluetooth - in most cases, a USB connection would be faster and there is often a cradle attached to the machine so there's no hunt for a cable.
That said, imagine walking down the street with bluetooth headphones on, receiving audio from your bluetooth laptop snug in its bag, which is streaming the audio from your 3G bluetooth cellphone in your pocket. The true promise of Bluetooth is the Personal Area Network - PAN - in which you exist in a cloud of interconnected devices.
Is anyone else starting to feel vaguely concerned about how many 'clouds' we now live in?
_________________________________________________
To forcibly try to bring this thread (sort of) back towards the topic, it's interesting to note that in the story, the poster comments that he can't find a BlueTooth SDIO card in "this sad little corner of the world."
:)
I understand his feelings entirely: but when we're feeling peeved because we have to wait a bit or pay a bit extra for the latest geek innovation, it is always worth considering how hard it must be to get a BlueTooth SDIO card in Baghdad, or Kabul, or Ramallah.
Of course, this is a tech/science site, and it would be ridiculous if every story had to be approached geopolitically. But we've all had our perceptions shaken up a bit lately. Perhaps the tagline should really be "News for Nerds. Stuff that doesn't matter." Might lend us a little perspective.
Anyway, sorry if this is a bit off-topic. Just wanted to share.
Is it just me, or does this card look fragile? It sure looks like the antenna will protrude beyond the edge of the device. Given how thin MMC/SD/SDIO cards are, this might afford the user considerable opportunity to damage the card and/or device it's installed in. I haven't seen the cards myself, so it's certainly possible that I'm simply incorrect--but it's worth checking out before spending the $130, I imagine...
Phil
They are available and in stock at FranklinCovey of all places!
t mD spRte.jsp?section=19962&item=8387
http://shopping.franklincovey.com/html/ibeCCtpI
There are 20 available as of this posting.
I cant believe this is even news ... I walked in about two weeks ago to Fry's Electronics for a memory stick, when I saw a MMC BlueTooth card by palm sitting there in front of me. I thought to myself ... WOW Palm finally released it, put it down then went on my business. There were lots of them scattered everywhere and the barcode tape even worn a little like its been there for a while. Did someone just stumble apon it like I have and just decide to share it to the rest of the world? If thats the case .... HEY They just released neat trashcans with foot levers to oopen the lid! Check it out, its in the inventory control system of Fry's Marketplace now.
www.widget.co.uk have been shipping a bluetooth module for handspring PDA's for several weeks now.
All things in moderation; including moderation
The Staples in Cambridge had at least one in stock last Friday
OK, so there probably are some bluetooth cell phones out there (I sure don't have one) but why don't cell phone manufacturers/distributors and/or wireless carriers offer a service that downloads a simple CSV phone list to your phone?
Heck, I'd pay $10 per shot to email my phone list to some address that would download it to my phone. OK, so there are some privacy implications, so don't download any numbers you don't want someone else to know.
The antidote for misuse of freedom of speech is more freedom of speech.
-- Molly Ivins
A good question to ask yourself is why would you want to
give up that SD slot just for BlueTooth connectivity.
I use SD memory cards in my Palm m500 all of the time,
removing them just to insert a bluetooth module would
be too much of a hassle for it to be actually useful.
I think I'll try TDK's BlueM -- it piggybacks on the Palm,
plugging into the expansion port, leaving the SD slot
free for memory cards.
$129 in the US
:(
$131 in the UK
Hmmmmmmmm interesting use of an exchange rate there
I know they often swap the $ for a £, which is a shame already, but increasing it as well?
It works well, but it's a lot to carry around compared to any given small mobile phone -- and keeping two devices charged just to use my mobile phone (which can go for days without being used) is a little on the annoying side. I'm sure if I used my mobile more I'd also use the handsfree kit. Also, winter is just about to arrive so I'll be waering a jacket with more carrying capacity.
It's a shame that I can't use it with my corded MP3 handsfree kit. And it's also a shame that there hasn't been a Bluetooth solution for my TRGpro released yet. At least, not last time I checked.