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Cheap Wireless for Accessories
morcheeba writes "Yet another wireless protocol for personal computers! In addition to existing 802.11 variants, bluetooth, and ultra-low-power newcomer zigbee, Cypress semiconductor is releasing a simple low latency, low cost (<$2), medium speed (200kbit/sec) protocol with USB human interface devices (HID) compatibility. Partners include Saitek (game controllers) and NMB (keyboards & mice). EETimes has an informative article."
Nail in the coffin of Bluetooth. *shrug* I'll believe it when I see it.. *cough*vapor*cough*
I'm a little tea pot.
In other "news".
"Ten years from now, they could do it in a few seconds." -- The Racketeer of the Hellfire Club, 1993, Phrack 42
So you finish browsing slashdot, go to the bathroom and do your business. Your leave your wifi toiletseat up which makes your wifi alarm clock go off which wakes up your wife who gets angry at you and makes you go put the seat down.
Your neighbor aims his pringles can at your home, starts up your electric toothbrush, turns on your living room tv, and starts printing random junk on your printer.
Let's hope alarm system remotes don't include wifi as well!
Wires suck, wireless rocks! Anything that will reduce the number of wires around computers and such is great. I just hope that there won't be too many standards, then the whole "standard" concept is lost in a way.
Martin
That's what they said about Bluetooth too.
And how much does a Bluetooth cost nowadays? $100? $200? That's absurd.
-------
Warning: Slashdot may contain traces of nuts.
Bluetooth has recently been killed by 802.11. (Insert images of John Cleese banging a parrot on a counter here.) The chips which make up an 802.11 device have always had a higher 'spec' than Bluetooth so Bluetooth was supposed to compete on price. Recently Moore's Law coupled with economies of scale means 802.11 chipsets are cheaper than Bluetooth. There is no longer any reason to buy Bluetooth, an inferior product at a higher price.
Chances are 802.11 will soon kill off any newcomer, with lower specifications, in the same way. It's a risky game to compete with 802.11 based on price.
Skimming the links i didn't see anything concerning the range of this technology.
If, as the story indicates, this is to connect pc's range is everything!
But all i see is "common" peripherials nowadays connected by USB to be connected by USB without the wire thingy. (thus: add battery)
Will it make a simple network connection to my friend 6 doors away or not? If not, it doesn't add anything to the things available now.
Why are other peoples sig's always more witty ???
You see folks, this is the great thing about standards. There are so many to choose from!
This is all just another way to screw us all. Think about it everything is going to get a computer chip so it can talk with everything else. Look at action figures, they used to be $6 now they got chips in them and cost $10. Soon your new clock costs $5 more and your lamp costs $3 more and your ipod costs $20 more and your toaster costs $10 more and etc. etc. etc. By the end of the year we shelling out thousands of dollars so my electric blanket can know my toast is done.
just because your a schizophrenic doesn't mean people arn't really out to get you
2.4GHz?!?
Nooooo!!!!
it's going to screw up everytime i pick up the phone!
Even a two-dollar protocol like this works at several hundred Kbps, when I have a network of computers at home, with enough MIPS to simulate El Nino, connected to the outside world through a 64k bit of electrical string. When it's dialled up. But that's telcos for you!
When I am king, you will be first against the wall.
This looks like it could actually be a possible solution to my problem of wirelessly networking two PCs that are about 10 feet apart without using a wire. So far the cheapest solution I have found is to put two 802.11 NICs in ad-hoc mode, and thats just a tad too expensive (by about a factor of 10) for my tastes for such a simple problem
With dirt cheap wireless commo, now they can start coming out with nifty devices like:
Automobile Instant Messaging so I can tell the guy in front of me to get off my road.
PDA Instant Messaging so I can pass notes in class and (anonymously) tell fellow bus riders that they smell like a rotten fish.
Wireless Spam that jumps from device to device. (lovely!)
Watches that receive text messages (like "Your flight is now boarding at gate B24, you have 2:13 minutes until takeoff") and perhaps can send back messages like "I'm running as fast as I can!!"
These are the times that I wish I'd gotten an EE degree instead of CS.
Another device that runs in 2.4 GHz to cause more interference with my cordless phone, WAP, and Xcam...
I am one of the main designers of WirelessUSB LS at Cypress and have been involved with in WirelessUSB R&D for almost a year. Let me clear up a few misconceptions about WirelessUSB LS (LS is the low speed version with data rates maxing at 64 kbps). :-)
It's main competition is 27 MHz proprietary technologies. It only overlaps Bluetooth in areas that Bluetooth is weak in the first place such as HID devices where Bluetooth has power management and latency issues.
Currently WirelessUSB LS will be used in point-to-point connections that do not require standards-based protocols such as wireless mice, keyboards, gamepads, remote controls, garage door openers, etc. Does anyone care if their garage door opener uses an IEEE standard?
If your devices need to interoperate with one another or you need high data rates go with another technology, but if you just need a cheap, easy-to-use low speed, short range (sub 100m), point-to-point reliable wireless connection that will not interfere with Wi-Fi traffic and can handle co-location of hundreds of devices than WirelessUSB LS is the clear winner.
your ideas are intriguing and i would like to subscribe to your newsletter
I just want to buy something like an iPod that transmits digital audio... and for car stereos to have wireless audio receivers as STANDARD. So I can bung the MP3 player on the seat, drive off and listen over the speakers... not too much to ask is it?!
We're not allowed FM micro transmitters in the UK, and digital has got to be better, right?
Anything that plays audio should be able to send and receive wireless audio. Wake me up when the commercial world has caught up with my wishes. There just aren't ANY more gadgets I want to buy, yet.
+AndyJ+
You can't compare a phone with a computer, until they start bundling them with connection contracts and gouging money from you monthly as a standard.
Do you really think the price of your Nokia 3650 was that in the price tag?
Boy that's really basic. I thought nobody with a brain swallowed that one.
Soon, the development of our ultimate wireless accessory will be complete!
The new Wireless Mate (tm), patent pending, a compact brick-sized device with a 10-pound battery and 1-foot antenna, will support Zigbee, WiFi (a, b and g), Bluetooth and Accessory wireless. Eight expansion slots will enable future wireless standards to be added for seamless integration.
Enable your cellphone, PC and PDA to communicate seamlessly with Wireless Mate (tm), patent pending!
Imagine the possibilities!
Visit to www.products-you-never-knew-you'd-want.com and order now!
Cool! That's just what we need! What happened to wifi standards 0 to 810, anyway?
This is very true. People who build these sort of devices will almost certainly demand compliance with open standards. People who "couldn't care less" will care when the standard affects their privacy or security in some way. Standars make things easier. Mod parent up.
www.sitetronics.com/wordpress
Ok, so Cypress is pushing this thing pretty hard. The FAE was here the other day handing out data sheets for this part when he was in for a different reason. But the deal is that the first version is really only 10 meter out of the box, or 100 meter if you add in an amplifier. Data rates on the first series are up to 250 kbit. And so far, this is not actually part of the USB standard, though they are trying to get it included in a future version of the standard. So do we really need another wireless protocol? I don't know. But the main drawback I see here is that the FAE was also talking about putting batteries in these devices. Personally, I'll just stick with the cord until that is not the case. I mean, how many of you want to have to stop using your computer to go find batteries for your keyboard or mouse? Granted some vendors could come up with a decent solution with rechargeables, like some mat you just have to leave things on that I remember seeing an article about a while back here. What would be really nice of course is things like the Wacom mouse that comes with their tablet. No cord and no batteries (but the tablet still has a cord.)
Arrest you BEFORE you commit the crime. I don't know about anyone else, but i'm sick of all the "scientific" satellites orbiting the globe. Now that they are putting cameras in cities to watch citizens, this is a natural extension.
FUCK BUSH and all his cronies that want to turn this country into a fascist police state. Let's put a camera on Bush and arrest him when picking his nose!
Proper attribution for that quote: Andrew S. Tanenbaum
Lucky Google Link
Second soul, and second one off the sinking ship, is Sekem: Energy, Power. Light. -WSB
To see widespread adoption, Cypress would need to provide useable data sheets, application notes, etc. I just went to their web site, downloaded every bit of documentation on the parts, and there simply isn't enough to implement a product. All the companies I've worked for have a process where, for a new product, you first give an overview of what's necessary to develop/build it. Cypress doesn't provide enough to do this. The only people they'll get are ones where they (a) have an existing sales relationship or (b) aggressive engineers. I'd love to see an application note that gives everything necessary to built any single product using this (PCB layout, EEPROM object file, etc.) But as a practical matter, this won't happen. They won't even tell you the format of what you need to put into the EEPROM that's necessary to implement a product. The information is all managerial-level hand waving.
They're also excluding some number of startups and hobbyists with the BGA packaging, which is impossible to solder by hand. This isn't as big a deal, but it will reduce the number of innovative applications for the technology, and limit them to mice, keyboards and joysticks.
To add insult to stupidity, the web site is a pain in the ass to navigate.
Question:
Does anyone here know how to use any of the existing (new or old) RF protocols to send and receive a signal which is oversampled (in the time domain)?
I have a hack I am working on, which I'd love to use one of these protocols for, since equipment is so nice and cheap. Is there something equivalent to the AT command set for them, or is everything too automated?
Any information or links would be greatly appreciated.
Did you forget your tinfoil hat again?
It seems like this technology could be adapted, as the parent says, for wireless audio streaming. I sure as hell would love to stream 192kbps MP3s from my laptop to stereo. Save myself the hassle of stringing RCA extension cables all over the room.
harmonious design
This looks really fantastic for some microcontroller based music instruments that i work with: hypersense.
Right now we are tethered by USB lines, it's not such a big problem, we stand still mostly during performance. But for some more dance oriented work we will need wireless, definately.
I'd be interested in exchanging notes with anyone who is thinking of trying these chips out.
Simon.