The Death of Bluetooth?

Aaron Cherrington writes "Bob Frankston has written an article in which he declares that Bluetooth has failed. The article states that despite the fact it is wireless, it still has all of the limitations of wires. Is it too early to declare the death of Bluetooth, or can we can expect more out of it?"

Comments

Power Consumption

[elid]

One big benefit of Bluetooth, as one of the user comments on the article's site stated, is it's low-power consumption. So for devices that don't require long distance connections (i.e. keyboard, mouse, cell phone, etc.), Bluetooth is a very convenient technology - WiFi is kinda overkill.

*All* the limitations?

[TummyX]

it still has all of the limitations of wires.

Except for the *wires* part!

I have a bluetooth headset that I use with my cellphone and it's much more convenient than corded headsets which almost always get tangled and broken.

I have about 4 headsets here with the wires torn out of the earpiece which usually results from the wires getting caught on something while I'm running.

Bluetooth has its place. It's designed for PANs(personal area networks) where WiFi would be way overkill.

Somebody get this guy a Mac

[phillymjs]

I've got a T68i. It syncs with Entourage on both my Power Mac and my iBook. It acts as a modem for my iBook when I need it. It interacts beautifully with the Address Book app on both Macs, letting me make and take calls and send and receive SMS. It works great with my Plantronics M1000 headset, letting me make and take calls in the car without having to take my eyes off the road, fumble around for the handset, or worry about catching wires on anything. And it does all of these things while still sitting in my pocket.

Bluetooth may not be perfect in its current incarnation, but it's a damn sight better than keying in all my contacts with a numeric keypad, or having to buy a stupid proprietary cable to connect the phone to anything.

~Philly

bluetooth vs 802.11 - a vendor's opinion

[wfmcwalter]

A few years ago (probably three, I think) I did some business with a company who made both solutions and complete products for both proprietary wireless systems and the then-new 802.11 and bluetooth markets (guessing which is left as an exercise). I asked their tech-sales guy which of the latter pair he thought would win, or would they both succeed - "only 802.11" he replied, "without a doubt".

I responded (as have many slashdotters above) that surely the two weren't for the same task, and thus were surely destined to exist in parallel, in adjacent market sectors. He told me this wouldn't be true, and his explanation went something like this:

Bluetooth has two main selling points:

1. it's a far simpler protocol, which means a smaller, cheaper digital side (fewer, smaller, slower, cooler, lower-power parts)
2. it's lower powered, which means a cheaper analog side (and less power consumption, and thus longer battery life)

But, he predicted, both of these would be eroded quickly. The former would vanish, he said, when both bluetooth and 802.11 are cost-reduced down to single-chip solutions (which now they mostly are). Sure, the 802.11 chip is bigger than its bluetooth buddy, but the cost-differential is pretty slight.

The latter would still apply, but he predicted (and it's come true, although not yet productised) that the 802.11 folks would produce a low-power, short-range version.

So one of Bluetooth's advantages (for its own market) is largely obviated, the latter partially so. Set this against the economies of scale that 802.11 enjoys, and the greatly enhanced oppertunities for interoperation that the dominant standard enjoys, and the "roaming" use of Bluetooth is beaten, resoundingly.

Bluetooth had two other markets in mind:

• as a desktop "wire replacement", for keyboards, mice, etc., essentially replacing the many proprietary protocols in that space, and for stuff for which we now use USB. Bluetooth can't beat USB on cost or performance, which leaves only the mouse and keyboard market. Sure, it would be nice if your digital camera or mp3 player would just "see" the PC without your having to hook up some cables, but the cable burden isn't that onerous. Now, 802.11 may be cheap, but I think it'll be a few years yet before I have an 802.11 mouse. So there is a market there for bluetooth, but it's small, and bluetooth isn't compelling enough to displace the proprietary guys there.
• the true "personal area network", where all the devices I wear interact with one another, and dock to my pc when I sit at my desk. Well, all those devices (PDAs, cameras, cellphones, mp3) have (or are now) converging on a single device (which we call a phone, 'though it is many things besides). This leaves bluetooth with another thin market segment - connecting cellphones to PCs. Again, cheap fast cables, IRDA, and proprietary RF solutions all own this space, and again bluetooth isn't compelling enough to displace them.

Every product has to answer the same challenge - not "are you useful" but "are you useful ENOUGH".