Slashdot Mirror
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?"
I had a bluetooth headset for the bluetooth sony/ericson phone, and it sucked. i couldnt get more than 15 feet from the phone. It claims 10 meters, but didnt come close. cant imagine much else comming out with it. just get a pda phone with 3g.
Oh, wait, PHB's read this stuff but not slashdot, nevermind.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
King Harald 'Bluetooth' (Danish Harald Blåtand) was the King of Denmark and died in 986AD.
/. this is *really* old news!
Come on
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.
Is it too early to declare the death of Bluetooth, or can we can expect more out of it?
No. It's dead. 802.11x is a far better solutioin for most everything. 802.11x offers better speed, range and availabillity. Sure, HP doesn't have 802.11x embedded in its printers, yet. But, once they give up on Bluetooth, you might very well see printers with 802.11x.
The suthor seems to think that Bluetooth will fail because it is not good for connecting to the Internet. Well, duh...
Bluetooth could be good for something else - Personal Area Networks (PAN). This would be used for connecting different portable devices without wires. Range would only be a meter or so, and connecting to the Internet would be right out. There is no sense in all devices trying to connect to the Internet, I only need one device to do that and then all other devices connect to *that device* wirelessly.
I wrote a journal entry about this very concept.
The point? Yes, Bluetooth is not as good as 802.11 for connecting to the Internet. There is, however, a huge field open for Bluetooth to fill. Unfortuantely, speed and availability seems to limit it.
I would look for Bluetooth-type technologies to take off in the near future, even if not to "connect to the Internet and compete vs. 802.11" The author seems to limit his thining to beleive that the only niche for Bluetooth would be to connect headsets to phones. Think outside the box a little, and Blueetooth has a huge opening and millions of uses.
- (c) 2018 Hank Zimmerman
Do you really need IP infrastructure to move packets between your pockets?
This is nuts. There's a niche for bluetooth. The whole p2p bluetooth PAN-in-your-PANTS thing may sound silly now, but my bag would be a lot lighter if I didn't have to carry so many dangly dongles.
I think its way too early to rule out Bluetooth.. it is still a relatively new technology, and its only now starting to see wider adoption - things like the Microsoft Bluetooth cordless desktop and the like have only been out for a few months!
Also heard about things like Bluetooth capable printers which sounds like a great idea.
I don't really see any suitable alternatives to Bluetooth as yet for short range wire-free communication between devices. The only thing that lets it down is the high cost of Bluetooth components in devices - on larger items like printers and expensive mobile phones this isnt too bad, but for smaller cheaper devices it kinda keeps the prices a little high!
"Hey! Unless this is a nude love-in, get the hell off my property!!"
The best reason to use bluetooth is to link your cellphone with your PDA or laptop. 802.11 is total overkill for that. Your batteries will die in 20 minutes trying to power a 2-foot link.
I agree that syncing a PDA over the internet or larger distances could be useful, and in that case 802.11 is your man. Bluetooth's goal is to replace short range connections, such as the near-useless IR (ever try aiming a PDA at your phone while as a passenger? I did, and I used velcro for the occasion...)
I was hoping this article wasn't going to be another Bluetooth vs 802.11 non-argument. guess I was wrong.
Bluetooth is widely used outside the US. And it works well for applications beyond headsets, like synchronizing PDAs and desktops, mobile web access from your PDA, and wireless printing. Bluetooth is far more secure for things like wireless keyboards and will probably take over in that area.
Bluetooth is easier to configure and administer than 802.11a/b/g--people can just do it themselves. And Bluetooth has much better battery life and smaller antennas.
I don't understand the reluctance of US cell phone carriers to offer Bluetooth-capable phones--they are not significantly more expensive than equivalent non-Bluetooth phones. I sometimes think that they don't offer it because they want to control how you access the Internet through their networks. With Bluetooth, you can easily and comfortably use your laptop or PDA, and your own software, to access the Internet through your cell phone. IR and wired, OTOH, iareso cumbersome that most people don't bother, if they are even available.
Look for Bluetooth for your next cell phone and PDA. Consider getting a Bluetooth access point for better battery life from your PDA and laptop. Bluetooth isn't expensive and it's pretty nice.
Note that there are long-range versions of Bluetooth (300ft) and that there are high-speed versions in development.
Don't you know? If you brush the transmitter with a toothbrush, it turns into Whitetooth and doesn't get that nasty Gingivitis virus!
503 Sig Unavailable
The Signature could not be accessed. Please try again later or contact the administrator
This story sounds like a wrap-up of an SNS issue, written by analyst Mark Anderson about half a year ago. Yes, Bluetooth has essentially failed to deliver promises on its wild popularity, and Wi-Fi is the NBT (Next Big Thing). However, it's important to remember that Bluetooth and Wi-Fi were designed for different reasons.
If Bob Frankston were writing for an automotive magazine, he'd probably write a subheading 'Why has car business flourished while bikes have essentially failed? Should we even care about bikes?' If you want to connect to the Internet and have wireless access within your house or in the hotel room, use Wi-Fi. But what if all you want is to have devices talk to one another? Remote control to your car computer, telephone handset to the telephone base, PDA to the laptop, etc.? In some cases Bluetooth makes sense more than 802.11b, if you consider cost of deployment and power consumption issues.
Thus Bluetooth is not really a competitor, it's a niche technology that's out there and that's getting more attention from manufacturers. Wi-Fi is immensely bigger and more marketable, but in the nutshell Bluetooth has its own applications and will persist in hardware design for next few years.
The replies on zdnet pretty much sum up everything there is to say already: Bluetooth and 802.11b serve entirely different purposes. It's like saying "I don't understand why we have boats when cars are so good and popular". Bluetooth is for ad-hoc very-short-range wireless networks -- of *course* it's not going to succeed as a replacement for 802.11. But it doesn't need to, as they're not competitors.
I remember reading a while ago that the goal is to make it cost about $1.00 to add bluetooth to ANY device, *including* engineering costs. That might not be here yet, but it's somewhere that 802.11 isn't ever going to go.
This is just the American slant on mobile technology showing through again, I think most Europeans wouldn't share the view that Bluetooth is dead. Heck, Bluetooth useage is still growing (quickly) over here.
What I don't get is why the guy is even compaing it with 802.11b? Its not even aimed at the same niche. Bluetooth is so that my laptop, my PDA, my cellphone and my desktop or car onboard computer (and sat nav) can all toalk to each other. The entire point is that its tied to a small radius. I don't want my cellphone trying to use my bluetooth enabled hands free car kit if I'm sitting in my office...
Al.The Daily ACK - Eclectic posts by yet another hacker
I thought that 802.11b and bluetooth had very different goals... bluetooth sounded to me to have goals similar to USB, while 802.11b has goals similar to ethernet (ok, flawed analogy, but they're definitely not the same thing).
Bluetooth's range is probably more a result of its power requirements than the protocol itself... you don't want to waste a ton of power connecting a cell phone to a PDA for a low speed link. It's just easier than IR. An application I was reading about would be using a laptop to connect to a cell phone's GPRS while the phone is clipped on your belt, instead of having to sit it on the table for IR.
The article might as while try saying that connecting a PDA via IR is useless because you could use a cellular PCMCIA card.
When I first heard about bluetooth a good few years ago, it was billed as not just the end of wires but the end of the bulky cellphone handset.
The sales pitch described how you'd be able to leave your phone in your hotel room and take calls via the wireless headset while sat in the bar downstairs. Sounded great. Trouble was, it took much longer to get any product to market and when they did, it was expensive and the functionality was pretty flawed.
Just like WAP, the marketeers told a great story and just like WAP, the reality was pretty disappointing...
G4 Hackintosh
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.
The current wave of cell phones supporting bluetooth should pull the standard through. I was recently able to deploy 3 new phones with identical corporate (large) phone books without pulling numbers in by hand OR buying yet another cell adapter OR schleeping down to the verizon store. It was Useful Technology. (tm) I think I may pick up a bluetooth keyboard and mouse as test items.
Is it too early to declare the death of Bluetooth, or can we can expect more out of it?
Are these two clauses redundant, or do they say the same thing?
You see a sterile, erm, wired geek.
At what point did putting a bunch of PAN devices that broadcast a moderatly high frequency signal all over ones body become a good idea? I know it wouldn't be a problem under normal circumstances, but theres always going to be some very, very gadget-laden people...
Banaaaana!
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
Having a Bluetooth enabled mobile phone is great. I can upload/download files, synch with my pc etc. With one of those nice file managers for Symbian, and a nice big memory card, it's bliss.
My new Nokia can even play video files. Mmm.. mobile pron.
The article btw, must be written by an American. Over here, there's lots of people using Bluetooth.
How small a thought it takes to fill a whole life
Bluetooth is going to be and IS already used in all kinds of things... In fact, the company I worked for is going to replace all their silly serial cables and random cruft of proprietary data cables w/ all or mostly all bluetooth and 802.11. Bluetooth is perfect for short-range data sync'ing like Palm base, car computer diagnositic eqpmnt, and there's even bluetooth headsets that work w/ cell-phones and other things. Bluetooth is definitely not dead, it's just lost it's hype. And M$FT is trying to push it's UPnP as THE way, next wintel will push for their own wireless "STD."
<predictions>
The next technologies we'll see deployed are passive cavity (this is not a pun) resonator circuits (no on-board power) that emit an ID code or do some basic processing on nanopower. Your groceries wont have UPCs, they'll have some little "patch" or "splatch" circuit that'll emit some tiny RF signal when a RF beam is aimed at it. "That'll keep those nerds from constructing a UPC database of our products, and make those CueCats obsolete."
</predictions>
The biggest trick the devil pulled was letting lawyers become politicians so they can write the laws.
Bluetooth is for headsets and keyboards. 802.11 is for connecting hosts. If a device is legitimately a server then it makes sense to put it on 802.11, such as those little webcams with a streaming and/or web server on them.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
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:
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".## W.Finlay McWalter ## http://www.mcwalter.org ##
This article is mislead in so many ways. People here have covered the fact that BT and WIFI are ment to co-exist, so I'll skip that.
Anyone who have seen an Apple intergrate with an Ericsson t68i will be convinced that BT is a killer app. It works seamlessly and is so beautifully integrated that I could cry with joy when I get to send an SMS on-screen "just like that".
BT suffers from ONE thing only. Bastard companies that love proprietary devices. Like Nokia. Nokias BT headset twists the BT regulations by transmitting the audio through data profiles, not audio profiles like it is supposed to. So you can't get cheat headsets for Nokia until someone makes a data-only headset. This is killing BT, not lack of usage. BT along with Airport is a marriage made in heaven.
Visit us in Europe, and see that BT is in daily usage mr. Frankston.
BONUS: Try the Bluetooth pic-swap-game! The rules are simple. Be sure to have a cool picture of yourself on your fancy-schmancy phone. Nudeness optional, but recommended. Keep Bluetooth enabled on the phone (Notice how this does not drain your batteries like you were jump-starting an F-16) When bored, search for other phones in public places. When you finde a phone, transmit the picture and it will pop up like a message on the other phone. If the other person is cool and tech-savvy like you, (s)he will transmit a pic back. Yay!
Introducing the new paradigm in proactive tech article authoring, the fault-tolerant, Integrated dynamic Bob Franklinâ! With this revolutionary, vision-oriented, optimizing software package, you too can write misinfor... err... versitile, even-keeled tech articles! Utilitising a data-warehousing, datamining system along with well-modulated neural GUI synchronisers and Quality-focused methodology, you'll be the envy of all devolved scalable migration distributed multimedia coporations!!! With such realistic standalone client-server model it'll fool even your upward-trending Exclusive RAD/JAD bugetary manager!!
I don't want a PDA/phone. That means I can't use the PDA and talk on the phone at the same time. And devices that try to comprimise between PDA and phone functions are generally not that good at either.
What I do want is a phone headset that I can use without risk of garroting myself. And I want to browse the web using a portable device I already own and am familiar with: a Palm m515.
If the restriction to Bluetooth applications is, "The phone must be in your pocket, not on your desk," I think I can live with that!
For all I know, the USB folks do have such a standard mini-connector.
## W.Finlay McWalter ## http://www.mcwalter.org ##
Many pundits in this long line of posts have repeatedly pointed out that bluetooth is intended to be a PAN technology (Personal Area Networking) And that the author is greviously wrong for thinking that bluetooth should be more robust at connecting to the internet.
To these many people, i must say your very very wrong. While bluetooth's focus should certainly be on nothing more than connecting to devices within it's limited range, it should also be VERY high on it's priorities to be highly compatable with the web in any and every respect possible. This functionality will allow bluetooth to gateway beyond it's limited scope. And lets face it folks the idea is to have your cell phone accesible from anywhere on the net given that you have proper authentication.
I should be able to leave my cell on my desk at home, go to work, or a friends, and if i need to connect to it remotly to dig up whatever i want.
The concept behind the address spac of IPv6 (really IPng) is to have address's for every device imaginable no matter how small it's role. And bluetooth would be wise to provide that functionality at least conceptualy. To treat the computer(s) it has access to as gateway's, and to offer it's (authorized) services beyond them or through them. The model for the internet addressing is two-tierd (network/host) and this has been found to be inefficient for the exact reasons why PAN networking needs to be fully functional and logisticly compatible with the entire internet.
Their are already plans and implementations floating around about how to deal with free form routing with wireless objects. Networks that create themselves automaticly... discovering gateways through each other without user interventions... so that if you walk into a room with a bunch of friends, your bluetooth cellphone has already discovered how to access the net through your buddies music player which routes through another cellphone upstairs, which bridges through a 802.11x base station (for whatever reason) which has also dynamicly located a WAN wireless station.
Oh i know the above is plagued with all kinds of technical difficulties at the moment, and some parts are non-sensible, but thats not the idea. The idea is everything is connected to everything else automaticly and wirelessly, while remaining secure... and while utilizing whatever transport medium is appropriate for them. Bluetooth for small close hand devices, 802.11x for LAN's etc.... wired systems for back bone data... and so on...
--Idiots, Every single one of YOU, A flaming mass of conglomerated morons, hey wait a second, isnt that how RAID works?
According to this article, Bluetooth is deader than BSD! ;)
I am waiting for that.
I have owned Walkmans of every type over the years, high quality, low quality, radios, tape players, CD players. The only exception is an MP3 device.
I have learned my lesson.
For whatever reason on ALL of these devices within a couple months of buying them I break the headphone jack on the device. It will get loose and start to loose the stereo sound and then eventually it won't be useable at all.
I have never had an understanding of what I was doing to break all of them.
But I do know that iPods and the like are way too expensive for me to just break them a month down the road.
A bluetooth iPod and a bluetooth enabled headset seems to me like a killer combination that would resolve that problem.
I am waiting....
Bluetooth by itself is not a big deal. But combined with technology like Apple's Rendezvous, it's really cool. Apple seems to be imagining a future where you can walk around with your laptop, and services like printers become available immediately when they come within range, then disappear when you go out of range. To Apple, Bluetooth seems to be all about service discovery.
I think we're just waiting for the killer app. Syncing your cell phone may be fun, and cordless keyboards and mice may be cool, but neither are as big a deal as wireless Internet access on your front porch.
I haven't given up hope, though. Since Bluetooth is cheap and low-power, it's not going anywhere soon.
Everyone is making excellent points about how great the technology is at what it is designed to do. Bluetooth suffers from a very simple problem. Implementation. I've heard about Bluetooth for some 4 years now. Like VoIP maybe it just needs time. The difference is, bluetooth is for personal tech-toys, unlike VoIP. So it's likely to die before widespread acceptance can give it life. I don't own a single bluetooth enabled device for two reasons: a) it inflates the cost of whatever it's built into and b) it inflates the cost of whatever it's built into. Thus keeping me from buying two devices. :)
Look, it may be great, the bomb, the mad-note, all of the above. But if you have to go find it or worse, wait for the great new PDA you really like to come with bluetooth, it's useless technology. Technology unused. Make it ubiquitous, like WiFi and it will live. Don't, and it's a hairless cat. Neat to look at...neat to tell your cat-loving friends you have one...but without a pair you've only got it till it dies...and it will.
>
I love Bluetooth, but I think the reason that so many people see it as pointless is becasue of the things they are able to do with it.
I have a PowerMac G4, and with the Bluetooth dongle from DLink I sync my contacts between my PC and phone, sync my schedule too (very handy) and also, when I'm around the Mac (as I am a LOT of the time) text messages will appear on the screen instead of the phone, and I can reply via my keyboard (heaven!).
I watch a lot of DiVX on my nice big screen and when I found that I can use as a remote control I was hooked! My Mac now plays music when I come back from a lecture and shuts up when I leave the room.
I love Bluetooth, I use it every day, and NO it is not the same as having cables. Windows users I feel sorry for, as MS seems to be ignoring all this great functionality.
Ok, it's NOT going to revolutionise your life, so STOP EXPECTING IT TO! But it is very handy and useful, and *cheap* too. Which is a big factor.
-Nex
This sig has been deprecated.
Bluetooth setup requires 30-40 steps.
Check out the Palm Tungsten|T, Ericsson T39 (a two year old phone), or Ericsson T68. To get my Tungsten|T to talk to my T39, setup was quite easy. As soon as the two devices are near each other, they easily "discover" each other. Then simply tell the two to connect. You supply a few digit code on the Tungsten (say 123), and then phone will require you to echo those digits ONCE. Those devices are now trusted and further setup is not necessary.
I write SMS messages to anyone in my Palm's address book and send them to other's cellphones with my Palm while the BT phone is in my pocket. Really slick.
Bluetooth doesn't benefit from more widespread deployment.
Imagine walking into your favorite pub and browsing the brew list on your cellphone or PDA before the server gets to you... Or reviewing the specials at your leisure?
Bluetooth requires many devices to be minimally useful.
Always wanted to browse the web from my bathroom. Requires two devices: My internet-connected home computer with a $30 Bluetooth dongle and my Tungsten|T with a browser installed.
Also find interesting utility during meetings: A simple glance at my colleague at the other end of the conference room and we both pick up our Tungstens. An instant later we're using Palm's "Blueboard", a shared drawing application where we can both doodle on the screen in real-time. Palm's "Bluechat" allows chatting between the two devices as well. Since his device is already "trusted", connection is as simply as tapping "Accept" when my Palm wakes up and tells me that someone wants to "draw with me". Most of the time I have to turn the device off and put it down as I can't stifle my laughter for too long...
But back to the article... As many have already said, Frankston seems to miss the point of BT completely. 802.11b is great to keep my laptop talking to shared drives and a Lotus Notes server while in our office building, but seems like overkill for the small bandwidth of SMS messaging from Palm-->Phone or doodling back and forth between two small, low-powered devices.
--Bill
Has somebody kept track of exactly how many redundant connector designs Nokia has come up with?
That sort of engineering really irks me.
Why yes, I AM a rocket scientist!
Seriously, what do you need to network on your person? If the only connection is between a PC and a cell phone then I will do just fine with a cradle. I just dont understnad what the intention was, and it appears that I am not alone.
People who think they know everything really piss off those of us that actually do.
I had an Aunt with blue tooth for years, and now she's dead!
Bluetooth is a personal network that lets you do away with cords and all the hassles they bring. Nothing more and nothing less.
And that's the way I like it.
The real problem with Bluetooth for keyboards and mice is that you have to have batteries for these devices, when the conventional ones work off the 5v line from the PC. Pain in the ass! Just what I need while I'm working, to have to find a battery for my keyboard.
There were approximately 10m PDAs sold worldwide in 2002. Of those, around 4m were sold in the United States. That's somewhere around 1.5% of the population. Even assuming that many people already had PDAs, that's maybe 3% of the population. In short -- only rich businessmen (and technophiles who always buy the latest gadgets). And that's PDAs sold. PDAs used is probably much lower -- while I only two 2 people who use PDAs, I do know around 10 people who have PDAs (most got them as presents and haven't used them since the initial tinkering around). Hell, I myself have a PDA (Dell Axim X5) I got for free, but I haven't really used it, because I just don't see what it's good for.
Where am I basing my personal observations? A computer science department at a university, of all places. One prof. and one departmental secretary has a PDA, the rest don't. And that's much higher than in the non-CS departments, where absolutely nobody has one. It's the same many other places. My dad's company gave away free PDAs to their engineers, but only around maybe 10% of them actually use their PDAs.
Cell phones have a much greater market penetration.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
This article is so rediculous. Bluetooth is designed for small devices that would usually be used over usb or rf.
But lets just assume that the entire reason for bluetooth was for wireless LAN type usage. Then it is still not dead unless we say that 802.11b was dead a few years back when there weren't that many wireless access points to buy, or back when microsoft hadn't even added 802.11b support yet.
Bluetooth networking is done over the PAN specification from the bluetooth working group, it basically just takes traffic in layer two and opens an L2CAP tunnel to encapsilate the traffic in BNEP (Bluetooth Network Encapsilation Protocol) then sends to a NAP or GN device (covered in the PAN spec). The NAP or GN then unencapsilates the BNEP traffic and, if its a NAP, sends it out in the form of regular ethernet traffic. There are only a few NAP and GN devices on the market, and microsoft hasn't even implemented the PAN spec yet. So how can it be dead before it's even alive.
I don't say that the sperm that ends up at the bottom of my shower is dead babies.
After PAN is widely used it will be a decent wireless solution for homes. It has very limited range but pretty good bandwidth, more than 802.11b by far.
It is to be buried next to the internet, the apple computer and the light bulb.
====
Crudely Drawn Games
Same argument applied to USB.
And, fortunately, Apple is here to make a potentially useful technology ubiquitous again.
Just because you don't think the technology is useful doesn't make it not useful for other people. Fortunately, when a market works properly, your needs, and the needs of others, are addressed by different products.
People who only want to make calls will buy a phone that only makes calls. People who want to do other stuff will buy phones that can do other stuff.
What's the point of deriding a system that other people find useful?
So, again, what's your point?
Why yes, I AM a rocket scientist!
Everyone makes the point that 802.11 is too power-hungry for PAN applications.
But if you only want to link to something 1 or 2 meters away, 802.11 could transmit at power levels comparable to BlueTooth.
But it's expensive, so it hasn't worked out. Cost is the only real barrier to adoption-- many will gladly pay $10/ device to eliminate wires, but $50 is not a good value proposition. Lower the price, and we'll use it.
Depending on the situation BT capable printers can indeed make sense. If you want to print from anywhere in your house a 802.11 print server is probably going to be your best bet. Say you had a printer that was JUST out of USB range and only a single printer you wanted to print from, an 802.11 print server is overkill. For a little more than it would cost you for the extra long USB cables and USB hub you could pick up a BT printer adapter. You can keep a clean looking workspace and yet be productive.
I'm a loner Dottie, a Rebel.
Damn I wish I could get a microwave that supported X11, then I could sit in the lounge and watch the status of my food cooking with a nice remote app running on the microwave. Or did you mean an X11 server? Coz it'd be super-nifty to be able to display ethereal on my microwave display so I could watch how the leakage in ISM band affects throughput on my 802.11 network.
He's just pining for the fjords!
I use Bluetooth with my laptopn and Nokia 6130i. I can keep the phone in coat-pocket and use Bluetooth to make data-calls using the laptop. I can walk around with the laptop while the phone stays put (range is about 10-20 meters) and the connection between the phone and the laptop never misses a beat. You would need pretty long wires for that!
I don't have to mess around with wires or IR-ports. I can just take the laptop and connect wirelessly.
Then there are the Bluetooth headsets. I don't use those, but they are pretty cool. No need to carry the phone around, all you need is the headset.
Lesbian Nazi Hookers Abducted by UFOs and Forced Into Weight Loss Programs - -all next week on Town Talk.
I don't know about most of you, but finding a bluetooth enabled device that actually does anything is difficult if not impossible. Systems from vendors do not have a lot of models with bluetooth, or it is an option.
Apple is the only vendor I know that ships it in most of their models. IBM's Thinkpads have a few models with it.
And the next device I'd want, the phones are kinda rare. Only one or two and then the plans are either not offered/don't support anything that I would need (national coverage with no roaming fees with a large amount of minutes under $50 a month, Sprint is the only one that offers and so far they have NO bluetooth phones). On top of that, I want PDA functions in a phone with bluetooth. That doesn't exist either.
The next piece I'd want is a headset.
I have my mouse. Of course it only works with Windows/Intel somehow (surprise, it's a Microsoft device)
The problem with Bluetooth is people expect it to have wi-fi range. Bluetooth was something that you could use in an office cube, or a meeting room, and that is it. It's not supposed to solve world hunger or network a 5000 sq ft. building.
As a rock-in-roll Physicist once said, No matter where you go, there you are.
The original statement that only rich people have PDAs is accurate, albeit some pedantic. All of us who have the luxury of reading Slashdot ARE rich. I'm not picking on you and I thnk that the fasion in which you spend the money you earn is entirely your business but please, understand that the majority of people on this planet are not living as well as you are.
And now, back to our on-topic discussion,