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Is Bluetooth Dead?
An anonymous reader writes "According to the EETimes, Bluetooth is dead. From the article: "In a few short years, many will look back on Bluetooth as a lesson on marketing gone awry". So what do ya'll think? Does he have a point, or is Bluetooth not quite dead yet?"
Maybe it's because of it's name. We already have enough people who fear they may get bitten by their computer. If you were one, would you buy it teeth?
See the Pictures of the Flood of '08
It amazes me how bad technically oriented people are at marketing. What's next, Redfoot?
IEEE 802.11 has taken over! It is everywhere now. even my microwave oven is IEEE 802.11 enabled.
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One is born into aristocracy, but mediocrity can only be achieved through hard work.
Come on people, electricity took 50 years to become commonplace. This is technology, not pet rocks.
"Learning is not compulsory... neither is survival."
--Dr.W.Edwards Deming
....guess that means that BSD supports it?
Indeed it does. Just as USB and Firewire struggled in the beginning, so it goes with Bluetooth. Apple has picked up the torch, however, so I expect that in a couple of years there will be plenty of PCs (especially notebooks) that support it.
It might take a little while for the PC world to come onboard with the technology, yet, there are companies that have adopted Bluetooth early, and seem to be putting some weight behind it. Apple has recently added a bluetooth keyboard and mouse to their line of products, making my powerbook's bluetooth chipset actually useful. The mouse is very well designed for use by travellers, although someone here is sure to bitch about the number of buttons within minutes.
Next time that I'm ready to upgrade my palm, as they tend to meet unfortunate fates while I travel, I'll probably pick up a bluetooth palm so I can carry one less cable with me. The cell phone world also makes use of bluetooth now to avoid cables.
It's just the conventional PC world that is taking its sweet time adopting Bluetooth. Considering that the market for wireless keyboards and mice definately hasn't gone away for Logitech, there is still a niche for bluetooth. Now that the marketing hype is fading away, the useful devices are slowly becoming available.
Weapons of Mass Analysis
I think Apple with do for Bluetooth what they did with USB. My wife and I are living apart right now (she went back to school and I haven't moved yet) and we have been playing with iChat. I've been thinking of getting each of us a Bluetooth microphone/headset so we don't need to be stuck at the computer to talk to each other.
Most of the medium to high-end phones sold now have Bluetooth capabilities. Even if this isn't used for more than connecting to a hands-free device, it's still a use of Bluetooth. The UK, for example, is about to introduce a law giving penalties to drivers caught using mobiles phone handsets themselves. The fines do not apply to certain hands-free devices, so an increase in Bluetooth car kits is foreseen.
Back to the computing front, and we're on to synchronisation. I understand a number of people are having hassle on the PC, however I imagine that will be fixced at some point. On the Mac bluetooth synchronisation is completely seamless - it is so totally transparent that I don't even think about it. Then there's file transfer - I use bluetooth to transfer photos and video clips off the phone (3650) to my laptop, and use bluetooth to transfer files back onto the phone (normally C64 games for use in an emulator).
The guy who wrote the article needs to get out more.
, Cheers,
Ian
Few FAQs for those BlueTooth newbies outthere...
BlueTooth Faq
Nokia BlueTooth Faq
Another BlueTooth Faq
I hate pointing my stuff at my other stuff if I want to transfer some stuff. I don't gotta point nothin' at nothin' if I use Bluetooth. For that reason alone, I love it and will continue to seek it out on the stuff I buy.
Don't even get me started about cables either... not even worth the keystrokes. Plain proof the guy who wrote this is an idiot is this line:
"And what's wrong with a wired headset, which is cheaper, better-sounding, lighter and more reliable-and without the silly blinking LED? Gratuitous Bluetooth? You bet."
All the people who like wires raise your hands! I thought not.
TW
Troubles with bluetooth was predicted in November 1,2000
CARLSBAD, CA -- When a moderator at Red Herring's NDA conference on Monday asked an audience of entrepreneurs, VCs, and vendors what business models will come out of the Bluetooth short-range wireless protocol, the room fell silent.
Finally, an undaunted Bluetooth entrepreneur leapt to break the silence. But the long pause when a roomful of 50 supposedly forward-thinking technologists and investors was struck silent indicates that Bluetooth has a long way to go.
"I get a real sense today that Bluetooth is a technology in search of an application," proclaimed one attendee, clearly annoyed that no one in the room could cite any research indicating a real market opportunity for Bluetooth-enabled devices and software applications.
Bluetooth is a technology standard that allows for a wireless local area network (LAN) that proponents say will rid corporate campuses, hotels, and airports of wires now needed to accommodate mobile workers. It's a step up from infrared technology, which requires devices to be in the line of sight of a network base station or another infrared-enabled device to establish a connection and relay data. Bluetooth systems talk to each other via a 2.4 GHz radio embedded on a chip.
The Bluetooth protocol was formed in 1998 by several computer and handheld device companies that would benefit from the technology, including IBM, Intel, Toshiba, and cell phone makers Nokia and Ericsson . The Bluetooth Special Interest Group numbers more than 2,000 members.
THEY'VE GOT SPUNK
Attendees of the panel discussion -- "Bluetooth: Has a new industry been created?" -- were a feisty, skeptical bunch. They put panelist Skip Bryan, Ericsson's director of technology market development, on the spot by wondering out loud, in so many words, why they should care about Bluetooth-connected products if no one knows whether businesses and consumers want them.
Mr. Bryan tried to placate the audience.
"This is such a big marketplace, it's hard to put your finger on where it's going to explode," he said. "We're going to see things happen that we've only seen in science fiction movies."
That comment may not have been the best thing to say to a savvy audience that has seen its share of over-hyped technologies and products -- from the Apple's Newton to the pen computing disaster to Oracle's network computer. (A few might even have been thinking about Scout Electromedia, which sold a reported 3,000 Palm-like devices to consumers before it shut its doors last week, making the $100 devices worthless.)
It wasn't lost on the audience that Bluetooth proponents once promised that products would hit the market in mid-1999. And despite the long list of heavy hitters behind Bluetooth, important players such as Palm aren't on the bandwagon. Palm ran a demo of a Bluetooth device at the CeBIT trade show in February, but the company hasn't committed to producing a Bluetooth-imbedded Palm in 2001, a company spokeswoman said. Palm plans to ship a Bluetooth snap-on module "sometime next year," she added.
Despite the lack of consumer research, companies in the device-making business are confident there will be a market for Bluetooth devices and are preparing to put them on store shelves.
A few Bluetooth-enabled devices are scheduled to enter the market before year's end. Infospace.com , an infrastructure services company, and Xircom , a mobile network access provider, joined to develop a Bluetooth-enabled credit-card-size personal digital assistant (PDA) that is scheduled to ship in November. Ericsson is set to ship Bluetooth-enabled cellular phones to retailers in the first quarter of next year.
"Bluetooth is going to be the de facto protocol for any kind of personal internetworking products," said Miten Mehta, business development vice president at Infospace, referring to PDAs, PCs, laptops, and cell phones.
FINALLY, SOME NUMBERS
Some research firms are projecting fast sales
Bluetooth is dead -- or rather stillborn -- only in the United States.
/grr
And it is all Qualcomm's fault.
It's been years -- and years -- since folks overseas and using GSM phones have been able to use bluetooth on a daily basis. Since the US has stuck mostly with CDMA cellular networks (hey, I use Verizon myself, the coverage can't be beat) that means they've stuck with Qualcomm chips.
Every six months a rumor comes around that FINALLY Qualcomm is going to release a CDMA chipset with bluetooth support, and every six months it turns out to be a pipe dream.
I would love to give a nice kick in the nuts to Qualcomm's entire management team. And to the heads of Verizon and Sprint for not demanding 2 years ago that Qualcomm get off their asses and integrate this tech.
Everybody spent so much time and money in the last few years on 2.5/3G networks that are completely unprofitable because it never occurred to them that surfing the web from your PHONE was going to suck. But if I could use my computer or even Palm/PPC without needing a custom $60 cable, it might be useful!
And now the cell companies get to watch as 802.11 starts to eat away at their potential data business, when we wouldn't have NEEDED 802.11 hotspots on every block if our damn phones worked the way they were supposed to 3 years ago!
Recursive: Adj. See Recursive.
Geoffeg
As I've stated before, Microsoft does not want Bluetooth to exist. IMO. Look, it enables small devices to communicate without the PC and to Microsoft, that is a NO-NO.
Bluetooth works great for lower powered devices like cell phones, PDA's, barcode scanners, GPS's, etc for a couple of reasons. It's really all about low power/battery powered devices. Use a handheld with WiFi and you'll get 2-3 hours of continuous use while Bluetooth gets you 6-8 hours of continous use. And sure Bluetooth is slower but is 100-500Kbps a deal killer? I've seen people try to use WiFi as a wireless solution only to fail because of the large battery needed to get through one business day. Anyway, 2 features of Bluetooth which make it needed/useful:
1) Bluetooth has a low range/low power spec so it can work at 2m( class 3 ) and draw single digit mA current or 10m( class 2 ) and draw 20-40 mA or even 100m( class 1 ) and draw in the high 70-120 mA like WiFi.
2) It provides a standard for these low powered devices to communicate with each other. Not just connecting but actually communicating such as with PAN.
And, look ma, NO WINDOWS! Microsoft supports Bluetooth like they support GNU/Linux. With one hand out and smiling while the the other hand holds a chain saw. Customers be damned.
LoB
"Anyone who stands out in the middle of a road looks like roadkill to me." --Linus
the same was said about USB. It took years for products to reach market, and years more until things became mainstream. Why? The cost far outweighed the convenience, and software support was sketchy. This mirrors bluetooth--it is definitely a better technology, but it is not fully supported by commodity hardware and software (with Apple leading the way, though) and it is dang expensive! I would have loved a lushious SonyEricsson phone with bluetooth and a headset, but it's $300. Within the reach of some, but not enough to make the market big enough to classify as "taking off."
"Look, it enables small devices to communicate without the PC and to Microsoft, that is a NO-NO."
That comment is unsubstantiated in this comment. What evidence does the poster have to make this statement?
Apple's contribution to getting USB going was shipping systems where USB was *required* not optional. Sure your Packard Hell had the port, but what peripherals could you get for it? My computer had the port, but nobody made anything worth getting that had the port.
Notice Wireless Ethernet. It was available elsewhere, but Apple pushed AirPort out and marketed it as a reason why you'd want to buy Apple. They didn't invent it, they weren't first to have it, but they did manage to make it more popular than it would otherwise have been.
Gentoo Sucks
A couple of friends of mine in college worked on a bluetooth engineering competition. They did not have fond things to say about it. Now we've got devices billed as bluetooth-enabled like the MS wireless keyboard -- its transceiver can't actually work with any other bluetooth devices!
Basically it's slow, fidgety, has poor market penetration and isn't a well-supported standard: too many incompatible implementations. For things like wireless mice it's overkill; for moving data around it's too slow and short range.
Funny, they said the same thing for the floppy drive........ Bluetooth will be dead when I stop using my floopy drive I say....
I use bluetooth every day. I sync my PDA and my phone with my laptop. I connect to the internet via my cell phone (gprs) from my laptop and pda while on the road. I use my bluetooth headset while on the run. When I climb in my car, my cell phone negotiates with my bluetooth car kit, and incoming calls mute my stereo, and come over the in-car speaker... even if I forget to cradle my phone. It's thought free.
Bluetooth has made a lot of things simpler for me. If 802.11 replaces all those applications, great. But for what it was intended, bluetooth seems to be doing a fine job for me.
My new Apple Al PowerBook just shipped today, just in time for its Bluetooth to be dead, kaput, no longer a viable solution?
Bluetooh, I hardly knew yee... thee? thou?
There are some odd things afoot now, in the Villa Straylight.
I think he misses the point. He indicates that one of the reasons its dying is because 802.11x related products out doing the bluetooth products.
One thing he fails to mention is that bluetooth is intended for short distances not long distances like 802.11. Because of this, the power requirements are much less, which means you can use the bluetooth products without replacing batteries or recharging for much longer periods of time.
I will admit, I have no bluetooth, but I look forward to a new phone with bluetooth capabilities possible.
Eric B
ebresie@gmail.com
What happened was that Apple went totally USB, dropping it's ADB Bus (keyboards, mice, input, etc.), it's serial ports (printers, modems) and it's SCSI port (scanners, external storage) in favor of USB. This forced periphial manufacurers to make all sorts of USB devices. Before this, while there were USB cards available for PCs, no one was using them as there was really nothing to plug into them.
It now seems that Apple's trying to push Bluetooth. The problem is that Apple is not getting totally behind Bluetooth the way they did with USB. I just ordered a mid-range G5 (single 1.8GHz processor) and Bluetooth was still optional. They want an extra $50 for it. I suppose it costs them something for licensing but that seems a bit excessive for a premier workstation.
I drank what? -- Socrates
Not necessarily.
The biggest problem with Bluetooth is that it came out at the same time as Wifi. However, it does have many advantages over other technologies.
In the wireless space, you've got IrDA, Wifi, Bluetooth, and special purpose protocols (like your cordless phone)
IrDA is obnoxious and doesn't work especially well. You have to align things in order to make it work.
Special purpose protocols can conflict with each other and only do what they were intended for.
Wifi is great, but it has all of the baggage of TCP/IP, quite a lot of power consumption, and is designed to connect complete devices. Wifi isn't meant to attach your keyboard to your desktop, for example.
Bluetooth's real applications are for situations where you don't want to deal with cables and are on lowered power requirements. Wireless keyboards and mice, except that you don't need to think about the base station (thus being able to use one brand's wireless keyboard and another's mouse). Synching your PDA without needing the cradle. Connecting a GPS to your PDA without cables. Connecting your PDA and cellphone without cables. None of these will work especially well wireless using anything but bluetooth.
Gentoo Sucks
They did the same for LCD displays, Firewire devices and CD drives. And one could argue that the lack of a floppy drive forced iMac users to go online to move files.
If Microsoft's unofficial motto is "Embrace and Extend," Apple's surely is "Embrace and Market the Shit Out Of." And I'm sure it's to their advantage. Think what MS could do if they could just sit up and say, "You know what? No PCI-33 devices will be supported in the next Windows. It's the latest and fastest or it's nothing. And let's take the resources we save and put them into designing an interface that doesn't make people want to punch CEO Steve Balmer in his fat pink gut."
On second thought, don't. Because MS would embrace and extend that concept too, and drop support for any hardware that "exists currently."
Hey freaks: now you're ju
Bluetooth will become much more popular as automakers integrate it into their cars to act as a speakerphone for cell phones. The 2004 Toyota Prius, Acura TL, and Mercedes E55 all have in integrated Bluetooth as an option. It will only be a matter of time till it is offered as an option on a wider array of cars.
*sigh* face it folks North America lags at least five years behind the leading markets for mobile technology (Asia and Europe) where Bluetooth is not only not dead, but in the lpast year or so it's begun reaching beyond the early adopters to become pretty much mass market.
As a couple of other people have pointed out, this is likely to be spurred on faster now in Europe at least by increasing legislation about mobiles and driving, (which is already pushing up sales of Bluetooth headsets here in the UK) as well as the steady growth in mobile multimedia - and yes I know that in the States and Canada you guys just want a cheap phone for voice calls, but believe it or not elsewhere on the planet this stuff is really taking off.