Bluetooth Shipments Exceed 1M per Week

An anonymous reader writes "Just when you think that Bluetooth is dead... The Bluetooth SIG releases a press story that quotes some pretty impressive figures - over 1M Bluetooth enabled devices have been shipped within a week. Bluetooth wireless technology has been quietly making progress over the past year and can now be found in an impressive array of consumer products, from mobile phones and headsets to PDAs, PCs, MP3 players and even automobiles. The technology has reached critical mass, with several books on how to write your own applications with the technology, including Java for those of you who want to create your own Bluetooth apps for your SonyEricsson P900"

Comments

What's next...?

[RyuuzakiTetsuya]

BSD people start claiming that boat loads of BSD products are flying off the shelve? *looks at apple.com* Never mind. :)

Re:What's next...?

[Anonymous Coward]

Why is that modded as funny? He's a troll.

Shameless plug:
Blogzine

Re:What's next...?

[RyuuzakiTetsuya]

I'm making a joke on two premises.

A) People believe BSD is dying.

B) Apple has been selling BSD based products for the last few years and been moderately successful at it.

Interesting.

[Ikeya]

Perhaps this is the beginning of the end of the "beginning of the end of bluetooth" statements?

Re:Interesting.

[spektr]

Perhaps this is the beginning of the end of the "beginning of the end of bluetooth" statements?

Dunno, I'm just a honest, hardworking undertaker.

Bring out your wirelesses! Bring out your wirelesses!

Technology takes time

[Drakonian]

New technologies take time to get established. Obvious but true. Think of how long it took for video rental stores to get a DVD section.

Re:Technology takes time

[leighklotz]

> New technologies take time to get established. Obvious but true. Think of how long it took for video rental stores to get a DVD section.
There's a difference: DVD's work.

Re:Technology takes time

[seanadams.com]

New technologies take time to get established ...if at all.

Bluetooth will fail because there are, and always have been, better and cheaper alternatives. It fails in price/performance even compared to 10+ yr old technology:

Low speed, short range: 39KHz IR or 433MHz AM (dirt cheap)
High speed, short range: IRDA (also dirt cheap)
High speed, long range: 802.11a/b/g (not dirt cheap but bluetooth can't match the performance)

Can somebody tell me exactly where bluetooth's niche is?

Re:Technology takes time

[Carnildo]

According to your list, it should be targeting the "low speed, long range" niche.

Re:Technology takes time

[Tony Hoyle]

Blootooth, fail?

When's the last time you went into a phone shop? - *every single device* is bluetooth enabled.

Some of the the new ones aren't IRDA enabled (IRDA requires a line of sight link, doesn't work in all lighting conditions and is damned slow anyway).

AM? *cough* when's the last time you saw an AM enabled phone?

Re:Technology takes time

[wishus]

Can somebody tell me exactly where bluetooth's niche is?

High speed, short range, low power use, no line of sight?

Also, if you are thinking about 802.11x as a wireless ethernet cable, think of BlueTooth as a wireless USB cable. They've got different purposes.

Re:Technology takes time

[seanadams.com]

When's the last time you went into a phone shop? - *every single device* is bluetooth enabled.


Years ago... I have dozens of computers but no interest in carrying a cell phone or PDA everywhere I go. So I'll take your word that phones have bluetooth, but will people use it?

AM? *cough* when's the last time you saw an AM enabled phone?

Never. But right now my keyboard and mouse are talking to my computer over 433MHz AM. So does the clicker for my garage door opener, and so does the remote control for my car, my household lighting, and probably a couple other things I can't think of OTOH. None of these devices have ANY need for bluetooth's higher bandwidth (and shorter range).

In the short range, high speed category, I fail to see any advantage to bluetooth aside from not needing line of sight, which is of extremely limited value at short range. IRDA is cheaper and does the same thing.

Re:Technology takes time

[HardCase]

Can somebody tell me exactly where bluetooth's niche is?

Extremely low power requirements when compared to 802.11. Just the thing for battery powered devices, which, coincidentally, is where Bluetooth is employed.

-h-

Re:Technology takes time

[chris234]

Well, let's see.... none of the options you list are all that useful for connecting my phone to my pda or laptop (IRDA? Sure, if I want to juggle keeping things lined up. Of course, then no free hands to actually use anything.....)

Bluetooth won't be dead until there is something out there that has a possibility of replacing it. And none of the options you list is there.....

Re:Technology takes time

[Yosho]

I only wish. I live in the Texas panhandle area -- last summer I finally decided to get a cell phone. I decided I wanted one with Bluetooth. I went to every phone shop in my city and three nearby cities, and none had any Bluetooth phones. Hell, when I got frustrated looking by myself, I asked if they had any Bluetooth-enabled phones, and every person I talked to just gave me a blank stare.

I did some further research on the local condition, and the only cell phone network in the local area that even supports Bluetooth phones (or rather, a Bluetooth phone -- they only support one model) considers this area "off-network service," so many of their features are unusable unless I happen to be driving through a larger town.

Re:Technology takes time

[Witchblade]

Funny this story appears just as I was synching all of my contact info between my cellphone, laptop, and desktop. Just one handy use of bluetooth.

Wireless headsets rock.

You haven't lived until you've spent an afternoon reducing stellar spectra and having the results published immediately on the web- while sitting in the middle of a endangered oak savannah. Cell phone coverage is almost complete over North America. A Bluetooth connection on an internet capable phone make a use wherever-the-fuck you want wireless modem. Forget tracking down grungy bookstores in filthy alleys for a WiFi hotspot.

Other technologies are more advanced, but Bluetooth is everywhere- and it just simply works.

Re:Technology takes time

[RevAaron]

I can't say I've seen it that bad, but for the providers where I am, bluetooth is only found on the upper 25% of the phones they sell. The more expensive and full featured ones.

I don't have a cell phone and have just about no desire to have people talking at me whenever I'm out. I do not like the regular phone unless there is no alternative.

But, the prospect of using the cellular data network to get access on my PDA does interest me. I understand that the phones with bluetooth allow you on your laptop or PDA (or desktop, I suppose) with a bluetooth chip to get net access through the cellular setup via bluetooth. That interests me, especially considering there aren't any cards for my PDA that would provide the same service, although that would be more convenient.

A friend of mine just got a Hiptop Sidekick from tmobile- $30/month and he gets unlimited data, and doesn't have to pay for talkie minutes. For $30 I just might do it- but when I looked for a bluetooth phone for this setup, it looked like I had to buy a $200-300 phone for it. Half of those were semi-PDAs in their own right, and I can say that I certainly am not interested in carrying around two PDA-ish devices.

Why can't someone make a cheap and small (around the size of two stacked matchboxes) cellular box for such a purpose? No LCD, no speaker no mic- just bluetooth, SIM, and the correct GRPS/cell hardware. I could keep it in my pocket or in my backpack, out of the way. It would be better than gettign a PDA with the cellular stuff built in, at least until service starts to be more convenient.

That is, I have a PDA that is quite one of the kid- a Zaurus C760. If it was supported only by one company, and I wanted to upgrade, I'd have to ditch ti and get somethign else, something very possibly inferior. Until then, a little bluebox would be slick.

Re:Technology takes time

[msgmonkey]

There was a company (cant remember who) that made a PCMCIA based GSM phone a while back. We're only now getting to the point where you can integrate the phone onto one chip, I think sometime next year TI are planning to release a complete system on a chip with something 30 external passive components that should enable someone to fit in a Compact flash form factor.

Re:Technology takes time

[Best ID Ever!]

In the short range, high speed category, I fail to see any advantage to bluetooth aside from not needing line of sight,

That's a huge advantage in my opinion. Wireless headphones that need line of sight are a no go, and synching devices is a lot less of a hassle when you don't need line of sight. Remotes that don't need line of sight would be cool, though you could probably use AM for those.

Re:Technology takes time

[t0ny]

Can somebody tell me exactly where bluetooth's niche is?802.11 is also overkill for many uses. While you would want to connect your computer to a LAN with 802.11, having all your keyboard traffic go into the same broadcast range would be jamming too much chatter into the airwaves.

A better analogy is comparing USB to Ethernet. While you want your peripherals to use USB, you use the Cat-5 for your networking.

And, as has been mentioned several times, BlueTooth also has the low power advantage.

Re:Technology takes time

[Anonymous Coward]

You haven't lived until you've spent an afternoon reducing stellar spectra and having the results published immediately on the web- while sitting in the middle of a endangered oak savannah.

That's your idea of living? Sucks to be you.

Re:Technology takes time

[scumdamn]

You could just get ab B-Gage on the cheap. It has what you want and you could play games with it too!

Re:Technology takes time

[scumdamn]

Sorry. I hab a code. I meand ab N-Gage. Dab sniffles.

Re:Technology takes time

[Eustace Tilley]

I'd like to see how you'd accomplish bluejacking with IRDA. Perhaps you consider the random social contacts "extremely limited value."

Re:Technology takes time

[Brad Mace]

Now if only it would turn up somewhere useful. So far the only bluetooth stuff I've seen are the adapters themselves, a few cell phones, and some head sets.

I want to

• have information like appointments and addresses synched automatically when I bring my pda near my computer
• bring a digital camera into a room, and have the computer ask if I'd like to download any new picture s that have been taken
• Use a cell phone as a modem for a pda/laptop
• set up a home entertainment center by simply plugging in the power cords
• Share speakers, printers, keyboards, mice between my computers

Some of these may be a little geeky, but this is where bluetooth is going to be useful. Eliminating a 3-foot cord from your cellphone to a headset just isn't worth the cost of the technology.

Some of this is allegedly already possible, but I haven't seen much evidence of it. Any other ideas for bluetooth?

Re:Technology takes time

[Anonymous Coward]

Have you ever listened to wireless speakers? Why the heck would you want to use bluetooth for your stereo stuff?

Re:Technology takes time

[cpparm]

The thing about bluetooth, in comparison to 802.11b, is that it doesn't require a computer to work

Re:Technology takes time

[Troed]

Then move to Europe where we're doing this today, and have been doing it for a while. Claiming Bluetooth to be dead just because the US is so behind in the tech sector is ... weird.

Re:Technology takes time

[simon_hzero]

Most of the things on Brad Mace's wishlist are available or nearly available.

• You can synch your contacts and appointments with a PC depending on the bluetooth phone - I don't have experience of bluetooth PDAs, but i suspect that you would be able to.
  
• Camera:
  Concord Eye-Q "Go Wireless" Bluetooth Digital Camera. 2 Megapixel, 4x digital zoom, SD/MMC, 7MB internal, video clips, web cam, TV out, USB, 1.6 inch LCD (PC Bluetooth adaptor not included). Wirelessly transfer photos to a Bluetooth phone or computer.
  
• bluetooth modem for PDA/Laptop - Already available
  
• Entertainment centre? - Not sure what you mean by this
• Microsoft Keyboard and mouse
  BT adaptor to make your HP printer bluetooth ready
  The bluetooth market is expanding.

Of course, they will need to be paired, so you have to re-pair it when you change/move it.

There are some advantages. In the UK, there will be a law where people who use mobile phones in cars will be prosecuted. Car hands-free units are usable. Bluetooth headsets are just about allowable and have the advantage of being usable away from a car as well.

Re:Technology takes time

[mejh]

• have information like appointments and addresses synched automatically when I bring my pda near my computer

I've just bought myself an Apple iBook G4 with built-in bluetooth for this. It will keep my Nokia 3650, iPod and dotmac account in sync for my calendar, address book, browser bookmarks etc.

:-)

Re:Technology takes time

[jmanning]

Entertainment center explanation.

Go to the store, and buy a new TV, receiver, 5.1 speakers, DVD player, VCR, Tivo, Cable Box / Satellite tuner, etc.
Take all of them home and set them on the shelf. Plug in all the power cords. Skip the rest of the cables.

What the OP wants, is for all of them to talk to each other, setup the connections, feed video/sound to the appropriate places, etc.

Pop a movie in the DVD player, turn on the TV, and hit play on the remote.
The DVD shouts out "Hi, I've got a movie that's been requested."
Your TV says "Hi, I can display audio/video. Send it here."
The speakers chime in: "Hey, I've got better speakers than the TV, use me for the audio instead."
The DVD then streams the video wirelessly to the TV, and the audio to the speakers.
You get tired halfway through the movie. You hit pause and walk upstairs to your bedroom and turn on the TV there, and hit play.
That TV says, "I'm taking over from here. Send me audio/video from the DVD player now."

Most imaginary scenarios I've heard of use Ultra Wide Band, not bluetooth, for actually sending the audio/video. This is better for high-bandwidth stuff over short distances. But, theoretically (and just to stay a little on topic), it could use Bluetooth for negotiating the connections, since this has better pairing/linking protocols.

Now, if only you didn't have to plug them in for power. I'm sure someone is working on that too.

~J

Re:Technology takes time

[pediddle]

Have you ever listened to wireless speakers? Why the heck would you want to use bluetooth for your stereo stuff?

Wireless speakers are analog, hence the nasty static and hiss.

Re:Technology takes time

[Anonymous Coward]

I was under the impression:
IrDA top speed 4 megabit/second
Bluetooth top speed 1 megabit/second
Not sure about comms overhead but still can't say IrDA is damned slow

RIP BT

[GlassUser]

I posted this on another forum, but I think it works here:

He's right. Bluetooth works very well in a very few, very limited situations, but for the most part it's useless. I think that's mostly due to OEM support than anything else. Not a single one of the phones I want support it, and the add-on adapters (that regularly fall off and get lost) cost way too much (Nextel quoted me US$170 for a little bluetooth dongle that I'd probably lose any way). It's not even being used for what it was made. BT, contrary to the claims of random discount hardware mfgrs is not for home networking.

If anyone wants me to use bluetooth, they need to give me at least some of what I want. Here's where you can start:
Decent keyboard that works with most things
I like the look of the MS keyboard, but it's the old square design and I need the split "ergo" style - unless I limit my typing to an hour or so a day and wear a wrist brace. A nifty add-on would be something that remembers a connection to multiple devices so I can flip a switch and have it cycle between my desktop, laptop/tablet, pda, and phone
Same for a mouse
Working on Pocket PC/Windows Mobile/whatever is kinda expected (but isn't supported at this time at all).
A reasonably inexpensive phone with BT
Weren't these chips supposed to cost like $5? Why am I nearly doubling the cost of a US$200 phone to get it? This is garbage. Filth. I'd be happy with a phone that did nothing but dial in and out, with BT (interfacing with a headset, pda dialer, etc would be nice - eg to the point where I don't even need an onboard address book - if I do have one, I want to be able to sync it with the PIM of my choice, like outlook). Or give me an overkill device like the Mot MPx200. I'm willing to pay a lot more for the extra functionality. My biggest gripe about phones right now is that they charge me out the boot for lots of irrelevant "features" that are only usable on the phone - my Mot i90c can store like 500 names, addresses, dates, tasks, and all that, but they don't exist outside the phone.
ditch this master/slave crap
I want a mesh, not locking one device to one host until I want to go through the hassle of retraining another one. I want my PDA, phone, and console to be able to grab my headset as needed. I want to be able to hear system events and dictate speech to my tablet on the bus, get a small beep when the phone (in my pocket) rings, maybe an onscreen notification of who it is, and tap a button on my headset to answer if I want.

Re:RIP BT

[ElGuapoGolf]

AT&T's mlife service has bluetooth enabled phones that start at $50. Cingular has them as well.

I think Verizon is the *only* carrier who doesn't carry at least one BT phone here in the states.

Re:RIP BT

[SuperCal]

A reasonably inexpensive phone with BT

Is free cheap enough?

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/B000 0AGRYX/qid=1068159128/sr=8-1/ref=sr_8_1/002-810734 9-0711235?v=glance&s=wireless&n=507846

Re:RIP BT

[infiniti99]

Bluetooth keyboards and mice are new, give it some time and we will have more designs to choose from, I'm sure.

For a good and inexpensive bluetooth phone, get a Nokia 6310i. B&W display, long battery life, no frills, but has the stuff you actually want, like bluetooth and GPRS.

Bluetooth device pairing is necessary for security. There are some functions that don't require pairing for convenience sake, such as sending business cards, and there was an earlier /. story about how this can be abused. I can imagine it would be much worse if pranksters could use your phone for dialing out!

I do agree that most bluetooth devices are much too expensive. I think this is mostly an issue with sales and not the cost of making the chips. Remember when USB was a premium?

I think Bluetooth's saving factor will be Apple. Recently they have started embedding the support into their computers, and even created a wireless mouse. I've seen their software interface, and it is very easy to use. Don't you love it how Apple always steps in and says, "Dammit people, you do it like this!" and it becomes a huge success? :)

Re:RIP BT

[tackaberry]

Lack of cool Bluetooth phones is my #1 gripe with Verizon.

I recently picked up a used Sony-Ericsson T61c, and an Ericsson DBA-10 adapter from eBay. Although the DBA-10 isn't officially supported on the phone it works fine for my Jabra headset.

I'm still working on getting the phone/adapter to work with my T3. All of the profiles/init strings are for GSM phones.

The headset works great with the phone, but I'm still not able to do all the things I would like to do, like syncing the address book.

Both the Apple Bluetooth Mouse and Keyboard are only my holiday wish list.

Dead? I think not.

Re:RIP BT

[Anonymous Coward]

What I use Bluetooth for:

Wireless headset for my wireless.
Syncing my wireless to my Mac.
Using it to communicate with my phone in a wireless modem arrangement. This could be used for the Mac or a BT PDA

Bluetooth keyboards and mice might be okay, but I'd persoanlly rather not have them. I have a keyboard where I want it, and it never moves. Therefore, I don't need wireless, and don't want to change batteries. Likewise for the mouses.

TIP: Ditch Nextel if you want a good selection of (pretty inexpensive)phones--otherwise don't bitch and moan.

Re:RIP BT

[tackaberry]

Bad link for the T61c.

The other option for Verizon customer is the Motorola 270c and phone module

Re:RIP BT

[ElGuapoGolf]

Verizon actually let me out of my contract with no termination fee because I complained so much. I had been told last spring that bluetooth phones were "just on the horizon".

Cut to this November, still no phones. And the T61c isn't available in my market. And they officially don't support the 270c anymore (I went down both roads with their customer support). So I'm about to cut the cord and go with AT&T.

I hope they can hear me now.

Re:RIP BT

[Anonymous Coward]

Damn - that's a rant. Fucking buy a Mac and be done with it. Integrated everything I have, and I use a BT keyboard and mouse EVERY DAY without a single issue. It all jsut works. My Palm (w/BT), Phone (w/BT, Nokia 3650) and my desktop calendar and everything just works - with a single application that does it all. Perhaps you ought to find a platform that actually works?

Re:RIP BT

[Graymalkin]

There's an appriciable number of phones supporting Bluetooth available. Most of the more affordable phones are not available to Nextel customers unfortunately. Ericsson/Sony-Ericsson, Siemens, and Nokia all have several BT equipped phones. I have a R520m I bought on eBay for about $60. It supports more contacts than I have friends, has a calendar that synchs with iCal, both a HSCSD and GPRS modem, and has a pretty nice antenna.

The Nokia 6310i as I understand it is pretty comparable to the R520 and would probably cost you about the same. The T28 and T39 from Ericsson also support Bluetooth, as does the Nokia 3650, 7650 and N-Gage. Sony-Ericsson has quite a few Bluetooth equipped phones now, the T6x0 as well as the P800 and 900. The price ranges for those phones can vary from as much as $400 ro $0 when you sign up with a new carrier.

As for the BT functionality I've already got that. I can open Address Book, click a contact, and my phone will dial the number for me. With a BT headset or a plain old wired headset I don't even need to take my phone out of my pocket (save for bad reception). You can also pair multiple devices at once, say your laptop, PDA, and phone.

Re:RIP BT

[barnaclebarnes]

Nextel quoted me US$170 for a little bluetooth dongle that I'd probably lose any way)

There lies your problem. It looks like you are in the US. You can blame Qualcomm for the lack of Bluetooth enabled CDMA phones. They have so far refused to bring out a chipset that supports it (They may have recently announced one). If you were to go with Nokia or Sony Ericsson over GSM then you would have plenty of choices (The T610 being my favorite).

I personally use BT for syncing my phone to my mac which works perfectly. This feature alone is worth the price. I am also looking at the mac BT mouse and keyboard. great to use if you have a laptop and want to just dump your machine down and use a full size keyboard and separate mouse without any hassles of plugging in wires.

Re:RIP BT

[GlassUser]

What does Qualcomm have to do with anything? My carrier is nextel, my phone is motorola. When I was looking at Nokias, I couldn't find one either. I lost a $70 bluetooth dongle because it wouldn't stay on the phone. From everything I've seen, BT is garbage.

Re:RIP BT

[madcow_ucsb]

I'd say a lot of its problems have to do with that fact that (at least in windows) it has the worst drivers I've dealt with since the early win95 days.

I have two USB Bluetooth dongles. The first one blows chunks on its own. I plug it in and >50% of the time...nothing. I ran the thing thru a USB analyzer at work (I do USB for a living...) and there's no activity at all. I also checked the USB-IF list and lo-and-behold it's not even USB logo certified. Great. Got the 2nd one from a friend (an iogear, hardware actually *works* on this one...)

But both devices seem to rely on the WIDCOMM bluetooth stack. Unfortunately, it's yet another situation where they sell the drivers to the OEM and you have to the OEM for drivers. Both of mine only have old versions on their websites (although iogear has the newer one but it loads with both dongles). Thanks guys. Now it's gonna be another situation where there are perfectly good drivers available but no end user ever sees them. But even when they load, they BARELY work. One one version, I was never able to pair with my PDA. On another version, I could pair with it, but I couldn't hotsync (COM port emulation didn't work at all). On another one it would pair but NOTHING worked. Finally, by going to a random dongle maker and downloading their driver package and tricking the inf into loading with mine I was able to hack together something that worked. But Jesus, it took a whole weekend of fucking with it to be able to do *anything*.

That said, I haven't had any trouble talking to a Mac or to an Ericsson phone with the same pda.

Thanks, WIDCOMM. Keep up the good work!

Re:RIP BT

[Anonymous Coward]

Motorola and Qualcomm have a stranglehold on the production of CDMA chipsets. So far, neither of them has made much headway into BT territory, with Motorola in the lead.

Obviously.... If you use Nextel, you're used to the lack of choice in phones. Most every construction guy I know has Nextel (no other choice or equivalent), and they all hate it. The phones suck, the service sucks, and the prices are borderline rediclious. Of course, you should know that, because they don't even offer service to a phone that comes with BT--which is exactly the point the other poster was trying to make about Qualcomm

You know, I can't understand why you people work so fucking hard at staying ignorant.

Re:RIP BT

[Brummund]

I use bluetooth on my T68i to control XMMS on my Linux box, and it works fine. I can control the volume, skip in the playlist, turn random on/off; pretty much all you need.

The T68 and P800 (AFAIK) support a rather simple "API" where you can use AT commands to prompt for user input. It is very easy to display yes/no, lists and simple search dialogs. You can also listen on the keypresses, so maintaining state in an app shouldn't be much of a problem. Great hack value :-)

Re:RIP BT

[dadman]

I want a mesh, not locking one device to one host until I want to go through the hassle of retraining another one. I want my PDA, phone, and console to be able to grab my headset as needed. I want to be able to hear system events and dictate speech to my tablet on the bus, get a small beep when the phone (in my pocket) rings, maybe an onscreen notification of who it is, and tap a button on my headset to answer if I want.

Totally agreed. This should be the way to go. Looking on the bright side, it's probably going to happen soon and probably are SONY, Apple and MS branded, with the dark side being they won't work across platforms

They're selling... so what?

[NineNine]

So what if "Bluetooth enabled" devices are selling? I've *never* seen anybody using Bluetooth in real life. Hell, I don't know anybody who even knows what in the hell it is. There are also billions of televisions that have shipped with the V-chip. I don't know of anyone who's ever used it.

Re:They're selling... so what?

[Chainsaw]

Too bad you can't see me right now. Currently syncing my SonyEricsson T610 with my Mac. Been using it since I first received it. Oh, and a USB Bluetooth thingie cost about $50. In Sweden, with hellish VAT. If you were offered $170 for something similar, the seller was on drugs.

Re:They're selling... so what?

[BWJones]

So what if "Bluetooth enabled" devices are selling? I've *never* seen anybody using Bluetooth in real life. Hell, I don't know anybody who even knows what in the hell it is.

Well, considering that the last five Macintoshes I purchased (including this sweet dual G5), have Bluetooth built in, I would say that a significant number of folks have the functionality. The question now is are they going to use it? I know I do for phone synching and small file transfers. Bluetooth file transfer in OS X is super easy.

Re:They're selling... so what?

[Anonymous Coward]

There's 5 of us here at work using it, so do we cancel each other out?

Re:They're selling... so what?

[WARM3CH]

I use bluetooth to connect my PDA to my mobile phone while I'm on the move to read my emails, check my account, take a look at the train schedules.... Quite often I use my PDA and bluetooth GPS for navigation, hiking .... I like my bluetooth headset verymuch and I always synch my mobile phone and PDA to my computer at home or at work using bluetooth. Now, let alone that part of my job is to develope kinematic sensors to monitor the physical activities of patients and no surprise that these sensors talk to each other and a host PDA using bluetooth!

Re:They're selling... so what?

[exhilaration]

No, I think he meant a Bluetooth dongle for his Nextel phone. I think I paid $40 for my Belkin Bluetooth dongle.

Re:They're selling... so what?

[SuperCal]

I think the problem is you just don't know. I use my PDA and laptop with bluetooth cell phone everyday, but because my cell phone stays in my pocket you couldn't tell.

Re:They're selling... so what?

[Anonymous Coward]

I use Bluetooth with my Siemens S55 cell-phone instead of cable or IrDA to connect to the Internet via GPRS. It rocks, so much more convenient than both cable and IrDA. And the BT dongle I use costs about $20. I use it also for managing my phone from PC (sorting SMS's, uploading/downloading ringtones, images...). In my eyes Bluetooth rocks for this and I am really looking forward for some more interesting uses. I think the technology is right for its purpose.

Re:They're selling... so what?

[Threni]

> Hell, I don't know anybody who even knows what in the hell it is.

Where do you live? Ohio?

How do you propose to connect two pcs, or two phones, or a phone and a pc, or a pc and a printer, or a pda and a printer, or a pda and a phone?

Don't tell me - wires, right? Lots and lots of different sorts of wires.

Re:They're selling... so what?

[sr180]

Thats because you must live in the US. The US must be the most technologically backward country when it comes to mobile phones. And mobiles (limited power) is where bluetooth does its best.

Re:They're selling... so what?

[Moofie]

You know what? I don't care what YOU think. I think it's useful.

Did Bluetooth take away your lollypop? Show me on the doll where it touched you!

Re:They're selling... so what?

[Anonymous Coward]

irda you fucking idiot.
thats what its there for.
INFRARED. NO WIRES.

Re:They're selling... so what?

[Anonymous Coward]

Cubical walls aren't transparent to infrared, you fucking idiot.
RADIO. NO LINE OF SIGHT REQUIREMENT.

Re:They're selling... so what?

[huckda]

Go find some Asians...they love those little 'blue tooth' features cuz they are techno junkies...

Yes yes...flamebait, generalizations, stereotypes and all that.. if it weren't true it wouldn't be a stereotype.

Re:They're selling... so what?

[TheOnlyCoolTim]

Wires are better than EVEN MORE electromagnetic radiation fucking up your head, and they're faster and more reliable on top of that.

Tim

Re:They're selling... so what?

[Anonymous Coward]

Bluetooth is a defective piece of equipment, thus all bluetooth devices should be recalled imedeately!

besides when someone uses bluetooth at local coffe shops my download speed from a free AP decreases from 380 to 47kb/sec

Re:They're selling... so what?

[cpeterso]

People in the UK seem to like Bluetooth for "bluejacking":

bluejacking is the art of anonymously sending messages to users of other Bluetooth devices who have switched on the technology and made their handset "visible" to potential bluejackers. Since Bluetooth-enabled phones, PDAs and laptops can search for other devices within their short range, bluejackers in crowded transport hubs, pubs or any other public place can easily send messages without being detected.

Re:They're selling... so what?

[Anonymous Coward]

Not to mention more secure. Kind of hard to sit out on the curb and ha>orz your wired Ethernet, unlike 802.11.

Re:They're selling... so what?

[dadman]

Antennas are wires, too. Does that ring a bell?

Re:They're selling... so what?

[Anonymous Coward]

BlueTooth doesn't work that far, it's a short-range thing. Now, when it probably works in your living room end-to-end it won't be enough to be heard through the windows by someone sitting 50 m from your house.

Re:They're selling... so what?

[Threni]

>Wires are better than EVEN MORE electromagnetic radiation fucking up your head,
>and they're faster and more reliable on top of that.

So I was right...lots and lots of different sorts of wires is better than just putting the devices less than 10 metres apart and using radio waves.

I guess you could wear a tin foil hat or something?

Found any credible evidence that the `electromagnetic radiation` emitted from bluetooth devices `fuck[s] up your head` yet?

Re:They're selling... so what?

[TheOnlyCoolTim]

Mostly I was trolling, but I doubt it would be *good* for your head.

Tim

Ironic.

[anaphora]

Ironic. Just a few days ago there was an article practically telling spammers how to use this technology to spam users. While it's not feasible, and probably has no correlation, maybe if the technology gets more popular, the spam problem will become as real as email spam. Personally, I can't wait for Walmart to have another way to tell me that baby food is on sale as soon as I walk in the door.

Re:Ironic.

[The Munger]

Personally, I can't wait for Walmart to have another way to tell me that baby food is on sale as soon as I walk in the door.

They won't tell you about the baby food. Your Bluetooth enabled credit/loyalty card will already have identified your buying habits. The store's database will crunch away, and in an instant, your phone/pda/gaming device/watch will all message you telling you about the offers that do pertain to you.

You bought Corn Flakes once before, perhaps you'd like to try this new Cereal. We think it tastes just as good, and is even cheaper (and their marketing department are definantly not paying us - honest).

The scary thing is, they'll probably work it out so smoothly, you probably will buy the things that they suggest.

Re:Ironic.

[Anonymous Coward]

But no matter how smart they get they will never know that all those laxatives I buy are destined for co-workers drinks.

Re:Ironic.

[fermion]

We think it tastes just as good, and is even cheaper (and their marketing department are definantly not paying us - honest).

Of course the marketing department is not paying the store, as the brand that will be pushed is the store brand. And it is probably as good or better than the more expensive traditional brand.

The intersting thing is that the loyalty card could log you in and out of the store, record your movements, and offer you specials on frequently purchased items as you pass the appropriate aisles.

Even better they won't have to strip search you on the way out. RF tags and your card will reconcile what you picked up, what you purchased, and what you left the store with. If any discrepencies are found, a security vehicle will be sent to meet you at your car.

A challenge?

[millette]

"Even critics would be hard-pressed to name any other wireless communications technology that managed to achieve the volumes and diversity of deployment of Bluetooth in just six years."

Michael Wall, industry analyst, Frost & Sullivan.

Anybody feels like taking this challenge?

Re:A challenge?

[sprdelfin]

Anybody feels like taking this challenge?

That would be sort of like running into a Wall.

Re:A challenge?

[holloway]

Jini.

over 1M Bluetooth...

[Anonymous Coward]

over 1M Bluetooth enabled devices have been shipped within a week

More than one million Lie With Statistics at Google... and that in 0.07 seconds!

Not any surprise

[plj]

I have a 12" Apple PBook with internal BT. I can wake it anywhere I'm moving with it, and then just connect to the net with my Nokia 3650 via "USB Bluetooth Modem" - without taking the phone off of my pocket. And MS BT mouse is rather nice piece of hardware, too.

All this just works, without tweaking (except what comes to Nokia's nonexistent Mac support). Tell any good reason why wouldn't it be popular?

Re:Not any surprise

[Anonymous Coward]

Not supported by Nokia, maybe -- but it is by Apple. Your phone should work with iSync to sync addresses/appointments, you can transfer files with Apple's Bluetooth file transfer utility, and Quicktime supports 3GPP, the video codec the Nokia video camera shoots in. Maybe you should be having even more fun than you already are!

Re:Not any surprise

[plj]

The lack of Nokia support I was referring to was mostly related to lack of GPRS modem scripts - luckily some googling helped me to find third party ones (Apple doesn't have them, either).

I'm aware of the features you mentioned. I have used BT file transfer quite often to transfer images I've taken with phone's camera to my Mac, but the 3GPP files I've made and transferred to the phone have, for some unknown reason, failed to play, and iSync has some limitations, which are greatly reducing its usability for me.

My point was, however, that Bluetooth rocks - at least for me.

Re:Not any surprise

[Raptor CK]

Wait... you made the MS BT mouse work with the internal adapter in the 12" PB? ...how? That's been the biggest issue with the MS mouse, since it turned out that they weren't following the Bluetooth spec properly.

Re:Not any surprise

[plj]

Interesting, how often I will hear this, when I mention about my mouse... this is just some sort of anti-MS FUD (not that I like MS, but I neither like any kind of FUD). They didn't just make drivers for Macs, but the mouse itself does follow the BT spec - and it must follow, as their own BT dongle has a standard CSR chip onboard. I've actually used the dongle W2k with 3rd party drivers (but not with mouse - W2k does not support BT HID's), although MS itself only provides drivers for WXP.

Hell, a friend of mine who is a BlueZ developer made it work under Debian with his iBook, and he said it was not any great hassle. The mouse is just in undiscoverable mode by default - you have to press the connect channel button at the bottom of the mouse to make it to be discoverable for a moment to pair it with your box. What MS has crippled, is the setup of the mouse under WXP, which does not require pressing that button, but still finds the mouse.

The support was added in OS 10.2.5, and Apple also has an article how to make it work (and another for keyboard).

Re:Not any surprise

[Raptor CK]

I should've added "I've heard" or "apparently" to my comment.

Regardless, that's good news for me. I can now grab a multi-button bluetooth mouse. I've been less concerned about the FUD and more concerned about just getting a usable mouse, and the apparent lies were effective enough to stall me up until now.

Thanks!

A new technology waiting for the right app.

[slusich]

Until an app. comes around that truly proves useful, bluetooth support will be just another label on the features list. If that day ever comes, then I think it will be a real selling point on new devices.

Re:A new technology waiting for the right app.

[penguin7of9]

You mean like wireless headsets and mobile Internet access (through your cell phone)?

But maybe you know of 802.11 headsets and 802.11 cell phones?

Even if they existed, BT gets far better battery life.

Re:A new technology waiting for the right app.

[slusich]

I don't really claim to know what the right app will be. Wireless headsets don't make sense to me. I've tried them, and I wasn't very impressed.

Re:A new technology waiting for the right app.

[Anonymous Coward]

Um, hello?

* Salling Clicker

* iSync

Both killer bluetooth apps.

I just got one

[EdotOrg]

I know I just bought a maxed out iBook G4, specifically because the bluetooh was builtin. I also picked up the Apple Bluetooth mouse, and an HP 450 battery-powered mobile printer with enabled bluetooth. As soon as the cell phone portability kicks in, I will be getting a Nokia 3650 with bluetooth and GPRS for roving internet on my laptop!

Hells bells, am I a geek? Beats me, but for my career (real estate agent in Florida), I can tells you that nothing impresses client (especially old folk) than walking into a listing presentation with a gorgeous apple notebook, a good suit, and NO WIRES ANYWHERE! People are fascinated by it, and helps to break the ice.

Oh, and yes, I am married. To an gorgeous Ecuadorian, no less. Some of us can convert to the dark side.

Shameless plug:

http://www.ianzepp.com

Re:I just got one

[Anonymous Coward]

Enough about bluetooth, let's talk about you!

Re:I just got one

[Anonymous Coward]

Ok, if you insist:

I am a dynamic figure, often seen scaling walls and crushing ice. I have been known to remodel train stations on my lunch breaks, making them more efficient in the area of heat retention. I translate ethnic slurs for Cuban refugees, I write award-winning operas, I manage time efficiently. Occasionally, I tread water for three days in a row.

I woo women with my sensuous and godlike trombone playing, I can pilot bicycles up several inclines with unflagging speed, and I cook Thirty-Minute Brownies in twenty minutes. I am an expert in stucco, a veteran in love, and an outlaw in Peru.

Using only a hoe and a large glass of water, I once single-handedly defended a small village in the Amazon Basin from a horde of ferocious army ants. I play bluegrass cello, I was scouted by the Mets, I am the subject of numerous documentaries. When I'm bored, I build large suspension bridges in my yard. I enjoy urban hang gliding. On Wednesdays, after school, I repair electrical appliances free of charge.

I am an abstract artist, a concrete analyst, and a ruthless bookie. Critics worldwide swoon over my original line of corduroy evening wear. I don't perspire. I am a private citizen, yet I receive fan mail. I have been caller number nine and have won the weekend passes. Last summer I toured New Jersey with a traveling centrifugal-force demonstration. I bat .400. My deft floral arrangements have earned me fame in international botany circles. Children trust me.

I can hurl tennis rackets at small moving objects with deadly accuracy. I once read Paradise Lost, Moby Dick, and David Copperfield in one day and still had time to refurbish an entire dining room that evening. I know the exact location of every food item in the supermarket. I have performed several covert operations for the CIA. I sleep once a week; when I do sleep, I sleep in a chair. While on vacation in Canada, I successfully negotiated with a group of terrorists who had seized a small bakery. The laws of physics do not apply to me.

I balance, I weave, I dodge, I frolic, and my bills are all paid. On weekends, to let off steam, I participate in full-contact origami. Years ago I discovered the meaning of life but forgot to write it down. I have made extraordinary four course meals using only a mouli and a toaster oven. I breed prizewinning clams. I have won bullfights in San Juan, cliff-diving competitions in Sri Lanka, and spelling bees at the Kremlin. I have played Hamlet, I have performed open-heart surgery, and I have spoken with Elvis.

Re:I just got one

[Anonymous Coward]

You had me at hello.

A more useful question:

[pyite69]

How many bluetooth devices are actually used each
week? I have several but they are collecting dust.

You can thnk Apple for this

[oscast]

Funny... Bluetooth was considered totally dead only a short while ago... then Apple started integrating it into their products... pushing the technology very hard, and now, suddenly we get this news a short while after. Anyone who says that Apple doesn't influence technology trends is either blind or ignorant.

Re:You can thnk Apple for this

[sweetooth]

It's not just Apple. The last five or six PC mobos I bought have bt capabilbites built into them. However none of them are being used. So the fact that bt is being sold in large quantities probably doesn't reflect the number of people actually using the tech. Just the number of OEMs pushing it.

Re:You can thnk Apple for this

[Anonymous Coward]

I dont recall any OEMs using the tech before Apple started doing it.

Re:You can thnk Apple for this

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, and Apple invented the fucking wheel.

Re:You can thnk Apple for this

[Anonymous Coward]

Thank goodness for that invention too... or you would still be driving on blocks (e.g. *your head*)

Re:You can thnk Apple for this

[Joe the Lesser]

Anyone who says that Apple doesn't influence technology trends is either blind or ignorant.

Lucky for you, noone really says that. They just say Apple sucks.

Re:You can thnk Apple for this

[Sycraft-fu]

Ahh yes, the favourite logical falacy around here. I'll repeat again: Correlation does NOT imply causation. This applies to everything.

Now while Apple's adoption helps Bluetooth, I would say it is far less influential than the PDAs and cells getting it, since they seem to be the most popular use for it.

It would be like saying Apple is driving gigabit ethernet. I mean, they stuck it in their towers and now its getting popular so it MUST be Aple's doing right? Wrong. Back when Apple introduced GigE in their towers many of the Mac people I know were all excited and babbled on about using it at home and at work. That dried up real quick when they found out that a 4 port switch would run them $1000 for a crappy brand. They stayed at 100mbit, and many still are there.

However all that while our university was busily buying gig stuff to upgrade the network, as were many others. It allowed moving the core and other highspeed links from ATM back to ethernet. This paved the way for layer-3 switching on the whole campus. Now all switch level links are being upgraded.

Well, funny thing, all this buying of expensive gig technology (as well as other places such as servers) drove the cost down. Now instead of being $300 for a gig ccard and $1000 for a small switch at consumer prices it's $25 for a cheapie gig card and $130 for an 8 port switch. So now we are seeing more intrest in the consumer market. The gig chips are cheap enough that most SI's are now using them (since there isn't a significant cost savings over 10/100) and the switches are cheap enough that they are a viable option if you want the speed. Given a bit more time, it'll be to the point where it's the same price more or less.

Well, it WASN'T Apple that drove it to that point. Had Apple integrated gig and large networks uttely ignored it, it would be a dead or dying technology. They simply aren't a big enough market to drive a technology like that.

Same for Firewire. Firewire was NOT a success because it was an Apple product, it was a success because it is an excellent high speed bus that the audio and video industry jumped on. The fact that it's in Macs didn't make it successful (though it was a fact) the fact that it's in Sony cameras and MOTU audio interfaces and so on did.

Apple DOES influence technology, of course, just as most large tech firms do. They are not the be-all, end-all, however, or the massive trend setter that the fanboys seem to think. When they adopt a technology it helps it, as any company adopting a technology helps it, but it does NOT make or break it.

Re:You can thnk Apple for this

[Moofie]

Hmm. Kinda like USB. Remember when that was dead, too?

Re:You can thnk Apple for this

[grouse]

"Firewire was NOT a success because it was an Apple product, it was a success because it is an excellent high speed bus that the audio and video industry jumped on."

Right. Who designed this bus again and made it "excellent?" I'll give you a hint: TI and _____.

Not that I'm arguing over your point on Bluetooth, which I think is correct. Apple didn't design Bluetooth.

I doubt it.

[Trillan]

Well, perhaps it's a beginning of the end of the beginning of the end... but I'm sure we'll be laughing at "BLUETOOTH IS DEAD!" for months to come.

Meanwhile, I'll just keep using it.

Re:I doubt it.

[uberdave]

Is COBOL dead yet?

Re:I doubt it.

[INSSOMNIAK]

Still twitching.

Re:I doubt it.

[Your Pal Dave]

No, it just smells funny. (apologies to FZ)

SIG?

[fraudrogic]

what part of Special interest in the Acronym SIG don't we understand here? It seems that we're being subjected to the BlueTooth SIG PR machine. I shop/buy/research toys all the time and I rarely see blue tooth in any device. What MP3 player has blue tooth? (I ask because it sounds like a good idea....now if I could only find the bluetooth headphones....)

- no fancy sig to see here, keep moving

Re:SIG?

[penguin7of9]

Lots of phones, lots of phone headsets, and many PDAs have Bluetooth (more than 802.11).

And if you search for "MP3" and "Bluetooth" on Google, you'll find plenty of products that combine MP3 players and Bluetooth headsets.

Re:SIG?

[Anonymous Coward]

The sad thing about bluetooth headphones: BT wasn't designed with this in mind. The only thing that comes close to having a mono-headset using the headset profile.

BT headphones won't catch on, because the only way they can make it work is using a file stream on the file transfer profile. A major hack, to say the least. Being a hack, and a non-standard use of the protocol, it will be incompatible forever.

It's sad, but true. Iv'e wanted a good set of digitally encoded headphones forever, because I like wireless, but I hate 900Mhz crap-cans (interference, and poor reception) that are everywhere.

Re:SIG?

[EddWo]

Sony Ericsson HBM-30
http://www.ustronics.com/ustronics/erhbblm upl.html

Re:SIG?

[Moofie]

Palm Tungsten T3.
Mid- to high-end Sony Clies.

Just to mention two.

Standalone MP3 players? No idea. I don't know if BT has enough bandwidth to do really good stereo sound. I seem to remember the bandwidth is relatively limited (1mb/s or so, if I recall)

BT is good at lots of things. Low data rate short range comms that would normally go over a serial cable. (particularly since those serial cables for each phone, PDA, whatever all cost $30/each)

that tactic....

[nil5]

is prior art of SCO.

Bluetooth is spreading

[ElGuapoGolf]

I'm sure I'm going to see a lot of "I've never seen anyone using bluetooth, so who cares" type comments, but this misses the larger point.

Bluetooth *is* spreading. You can buy cars now that are bluetooth enabled. And trust me, it'd be nice to have your calls come over your speakers and have your voice picked up by a mic in a car. This is the kind of stuff that makes people *want* this technology.

Most PDAs come with bluetooth. The idea of being able to pick up a palm, hit a button and check my email while my phone is sitting in my bag or coat is pretty cool. No more cables to fumble with or IR ports to line up. This is the kind of stuff that makes geeks want this technology.

And that's what's cool about bluetooth, IMO. It has geek appeal, and regular people can see the value in it too.

Re:Bluetooth is spreading

[QueenOfSwords]

I think part of the problem is that historically, Americans don't take up new 'gimmicky' technology as fast as Europe, Japan and Australia. While it's hardly commonplace, Bluetooth is steadily catching on in Australia. Bluetooth is common on next-gen phones like the t610 and late-model Nokias, It's on PDAs, and PC dongles are becoming more affordable and widely available.
I only recently got a t610 so I speak from experience :) I sync it with Evolution. You don't know how useful Bluetooth is until you use it for yourself.

Re:Bluetooth is spreading

[FuzzyBad-Mofo]

Bluetooth *is* spreading.

Damn, that sounds scary. This was an ill named technology, especially for it to be catching on at a time of such concern about the spread of disease. Maybe some product placement would help their image. Hey, I bet the band Anthrax could use some new wireless equipment! :)

802.11?

[freeweed]

Sure. I'll be a stickler and volunteer 802.11.

Damn near everywhere I go I see this stuff for sale, and pretty soon every home router will have it by default.

I have yet to see a Bluetooth device anywhere for sale, or in use by anyone I know. Everyone mentions cellphones, but um.. I thought they already WERE wireless devices. I guess whatever features BT adds don't ring my bell. I've played with 802.11 on iPaqs, but have yet to see a PDA with BT on it, which is about the only use I can think for this stuff. Sorry, wireless mice and keyboards are a hassle to use IMHO - batteries, the extra cost, etc - and it's not like a wired keyboard that never moves makes one bit of difference to me.

And I think we've been hearing about BT longer than 802.11, but my memory could be fuzzy on this one.

Re:802.11?

[kalidasa]

I can fix 802.11 to at least 2000, when it was in a friend's PowerBook. Also, Palm has a couple of BT capable PDAs.

Re:802.11?

[freeweed]

Slashdot had its first story on BT in April of 1998.

802.11 has been in the works since 1990, but was nothing more than paper until 1997:

Seven years later (1997), the group approved IEEE 802.11 as the world's first WLAN standard with data rates of 1 and 2 Mbps. In 1999 the working group approved two extensions to 802.11 - 802.11a and b.

From random googling.

Re:802.11?

[HardCase]

I have yet to see a Bluetooth device anywhere for sale, or in use by anyone I know. Everyone mentions cellphones, but um.. I thought they already WERE wireless devices. I guess whatever features BT adds don't ring my bell. I've played with 802.11 on iPaqs, but have yet to see a PDA with BT on it, which is about the only use I can think for this stuff. Sorry, wireless mice and keyboards are a hassle to use IMHO - batteries, the extra cost, etc - and it's not like a wired keyboard that never moves makes one bit of difference to me.

All of the Palm Tungstens except the E have Bluetooth. The top of the line Zire might, too, but I'm not sure about that. I have a T2 and synchronize over Bluetooth. AvantGo works in real time and I can send and receive email. Web browsing kind of sucks on a 320x320 screen, but it works. I bought a Belkin USB adapter for $35, both Windows XP and Linux recognize it just fine.

A significant feature that Bluetooth adds for portable devices is that it uses significantly less power than 802.11.

From a corporate perspective, BT keyboards and mice are great. They untether the keyboard and mouse from the computer and allow the presenter to be somewhere other than right next to the computer - an excellent thing if the presentation computer is in a locked cabinet, but the presenter is in the middle of the room. I happen to like the reduction in cable clutter. Yes, the batteries wear out, I go through four about every two to three weeks. But my desk has no cables. That's important to me. But, like you didn't say, that's just my opinion.

Of the people that I've talked to, those who have used BT really like it, those who haven't either have no opinion or don't think it's worth it. Draw your own conclusion from that.
-h-

Re:802.11?

[freeweed]

those who have used BT really like it, those who haven't either have no opinion or don't think it's worth it. Draw your own conclusion from that.

My conclusion would be that it's impossible to have a positive opinion about something until you've really used it. Or rather, if someone thinks something is a good idea, they've probably gone and tried/used it. Kinda like everything else in the world.

Yeah, the cynical side of life :)

Good point about the presentation side of things though, those IR/RF mice/RC combos just don't cut it sometimes.

Re:802.11?

[mozumder]

My guess is that Bluetooth device shipments even exceeds the number of 802.11 device shipments already. Consider all the Cell phones and PDAs that have bluetooth now. That's millions of devices right there. Now, how many cell phones and PDA's have 802.11? Not that many...

We're also going to start seeing massive bluetooth shipments when PCs come ready with it to connect their keyboards and mice.

Re:802.11?

[EddWo]

Well maybe its not caught on in the US but in europe its everywhere.

I have 7 bluetooth devices in this room and an access point/print server next door.

All the recent ipaqs have it built in.
All the higher end mobile phones have it built in.
Powerbooks, G4s G5s etc have it as an option.
Lots of PC laptops have it as an option.
MS, Apple and Logitech are selling keyboards and mice.
OS X has had native support since 10.2.
Native Windows support will roll out with XP SP2.
There are hundreds of bluetooth USB, PCMCIA, CF Card, SD-IO card adaptors available for devices without it built in.
BT headsets are selling all over the place. Some for only 30.
People use it for synching contacts, calenders and tasks between Phones PDAs, and PCs
People use it to connect PDAs and Laptops to the internet via GPRS bluetooth phones.
You can even get bluetooth GPS devices which can be used with PDAs, Laptops and SmartPhones, and Bluetooth Pens for taking electronic notes.
check out http://www.expansys.com/d_bluetooth.asp or http://www.blueunplugged.com/ to see what is available.

Re:802.11?

[YOU LIKEWISE FAIL IT]

There seems to be a real disparity of distribution here. Half the posters are saying they've never seen a BT device, let alone used one, where as others ( and myself ) can't turn around in the office or the local coffee house without tripping over one ( or its wireless signature ).

Perhaps the problem with Bluetooth market penetration ( apart from the fact that unless someone is using an external dongle you can't tell if they're using it... ) is that its only being rolled out in, I dunno, more technically oriented market areas.

YLFI

Success stories..

[ItsIllak]

There have been a few bluetooth success stories now, and it's in-arguable that it's a pretty cool technology.

As an example the Parrot CK3000 car kit is an excellent bit of kit. Simple to install which makes up for the fact it's a bit more expensive than most generic car kits. But once it's in, it's simply amazing. It's high quality (it can be, it's a premium item), quite slick (call your phone by name and It'll answer!)

But others like the Jabra headsets (neat looking, not too expensive and great for techies) are also becoming popular.

It's just taking some time to get both ends of the market going (manufacturers and consumers), but I think it'll still fly.

dead.. what??

[MGrie]

Bluetooth Dead?... WTF?
I don't know about the US, but here in Europe, Blutetooth is currently starting up Bigtime, and is on the brink to replace any kind of IR/DECT/Custom Wireless connection.

Heise is running some background artices (in German, and mostly in print only).
http://www.heise.de/mobil/bluetooth/

Re:dead.. what??

[gl4ss]

well.. slashdot is mostly us-centric.

and you know how fast they are to adopt things like, say, mobile phones? which are big part of bt usefulness but not all.

bt is much much much nicer than irda ever was.. that's for sure(and i use bt just about daily in transferring files to my phone and off from it).

-

Slashdot: "Is Bluetooth Dead?"

[Mad Man]

Is Bluetooth Dead?

Posted by CmdrTaco on Wednesday October 15, @04:28PM
from the stopgap-on-the-way-to-wireless-networking dept.

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?"

*Gulp*

[state*less]

so much for that "Was it ever alive?" talk.

me

HUGE URL! Here's a shorter one.

[Doug Merritt]

That's one of the biggest URLs I've seen in years. Here's a shorter one on the story.

1M Bluetooth/week
Same thing labelled as a factoid (not the same as a lie, mind you)

I've got enough karma, no need to mark this up.

Bluetooth is dead Long Live Bluetooth

[NorwBlue]

I enter my office, press ONE button and everything in my phone gets backuped via Bluetooth . I sit in my car and when the phone rings in my backpocket, I press answer on my bluetooth speakerphone thingy and just talk. When i want to call mum while driving I press the green button on my bluetooth speakerphone thingy and say "mum". When my girlfriends siemens s55 is full of pictures she took with her camera she downloads some of them to me and can take more pictures. When i had coffee at a local place i saw two guys trying to transmit a file from one to the other(IrDa) i scanned the neighborhood and transmitted a nice picture of my girlfriend(No, not the face) to one of them. Never talked to them though*grin* Last week when my isp refused to deliver a connection to my adsl, I even used my phone/gprs to do banking(http). And no i did NOT use WAP or that silly little phone keyboard. I connected my PC via Bluetooth via phone/gprs to the net, a bit slow but I did manage to pay my bills on time. So, personally I'm hooked. Can You spot the lie by the way...... okey, You got me that part of having a girlfriend was a lie, but the rest just work. Neat eh..... Sorry about typos, I guess the tought about a girlfriend distracted me a bit....

Re:Bluetooth is dead Long Live Bluetooth

[Anonymous Coward]

> I guess the tought about a girlfriend distracted me a bit

Judging by your post, you need one.

Re:Bluetooth is dead Long Live Bluetooth

[Anonymous Coward]

Judging by your post, you are an asshat, good day sir.

Bluteuth

[Anonymous Coward]

Just when you think that Bluetooth is dead... The Bluetooth SIG releases a press story that quotes some pretty impressive figures - over 1M Bluetooth enabled devices have been shipped within a week.

Yep. And they probably all supported WAP as well. Shouldn't we rewrite the headline "WAP is not dead!"?

The technology has reached critical mass...

Oh, god, it's going to collapse into a Black Hole! Maybe we should rename it to something more appropriate (left to the reader's imagination)

... with several books on how to write your own applications with the technology, including Java for those of you who want to create your own Bluetooth apps for your SonyEricsson P900

Java? SonyEricsson? That's sooooooo yesterday. Try finding a modern technology to champion.

Another Absurd American Myth Dispelled

[Anonymous Coward]

And WAP doesn't suck either.

Toyota Prius

[forevermore]

The car costs about $26k, is bluetooth-enabled, and has finally started reaching customers in the past week or two. Pretty easy to add up to $1M when the 15,000 pre-ordered Prius's just shipped. Wish I could get one, too.

Re:Toyota Prius

[windex82]

eh, it wasnt 1M$ in a week, they shipped 1M /devices/ in a week.

Re:Toyota Prius

[SparklesMalone]

It was 1m units, not $.

But thanks for the heads-up about Prius. It's pretty cool that it's any-kind-of-wireless enabled. That alone made today's /. useful.

Re:Toyota Prius

[Azghoul]

Where does it cost $26k? I ordered mine for just a shade under $22k and it has the Bluetooth "Smart" entry system.

Very cool shit: You don't even have to take your keys out of your pocket, the car just knows you're sitting in the driver seat.

The more expensive upgrade (that brings the cost to about $24k) has the GPS nav system and a bluetooth connection for cell phone use.

Btw, I'm in the DC area, but I had to order my car from back home in Buffalo. :) The wait here in DC is into February.

Re:Toyota Prius

[forevermore]

Where does it cost $26k?

Actually, I'm just quoting the estimated price that my dad was told when he ordered his (I'm jealous - wish I could afford one) - tacoma/seattle area. He ordered the full-package version (presumably gps, bluetooth, lojack, etc), and was told that it would be about $26k, but that they didn't have final pricing yet - maybe the estimate included tax, etc., too.

Only a million?

[Carnildo]

Only a million? Bluetooth is DEAD!

Blue tooth dead?

[stewart.hector]

I never thought bluetooth was dead.

How anyone could think that must have been living on mars.

Most cell phones being released now have Blue tooth connectivity, the same goes for a lot of laptops.

The problem is compatibility

[The_K4]

I have a PDA/Cellphone (I added a SDIO Bluetooth card). Now the card doesn't support the headset profile so I can't use a bluetooth head set. It supports the dial-up profile, but only to talk to a phone, so my laptop can't use the pda cell phone as a modem. The PDA doesn't support a mouse so that won't work even though the card supports it, the keyboard doesn't work (i'm not sure why). My laptop and PDA can talk and sync via the BT (which is nice), but the connection sharing doesn't so I can't use my laptop's lan connection to surf via the PDA. The idea of bluetooth is great, but there's a bunch of compatibility issues. There's all these "profiles" that arn't always compatable.

Re:The problem is compatibility

[Anonymous Coward]

The compatibility problem this time is your PDA phone. I provide tech support for wireless connectivity(gprs, cdpd, wifi, bluetooth, smoke signals, etc) and know that PPC Phone edition cannot be tethered to and is also not compatible with bluetooth expansion via the sd port. I assume you're using an SX56 or a Palm Tungsten or some other similar device.

Re:The problem is compatibility

[The_K4]

Nope It's not a phone edition it's a PPC2002, None phone edition. (It's a Thera by Audiovox). I have the Toshiba SDIO Bluetooth card. It works for SOME things (Like active sync and GPS) but not most things. I did indicate in my original post that SOME on the problems (Like mouse) were the PDA's fault. However some are the fault of the bluetooth card (which only supports SOME profiles).

BlueTooth Rocks!

[binaryDigit]

I have a SE T616 phone, a Clie NZ90 and a BT dongle on my PC and PowerBook (I also have a DCR-PC120BT Sony DV camcorder with BT, but I haven't actually found a good use for it's BT support). I sync both the T616 and NZ90 via BT with my PC (WinXP and Outlook). I use the T616 as a BT modem on both the Clie and the PowerBook.

For syncing BT is great because I don't have to have a bunch of usb cables spider webbing out to my devices. My phone stays on my belt and the pda just sits where ever it's most convenient. I just press sync in outlook for the phone, or tap sync on the Clie and they just start syncing. Nice. No more having to plug cables in and remember to unplug to actually use the device.

Using the phone as a modem via BT is also great since I usually do this "out in the field", where if I had to drag my phone out of my pocket (where it usually is when I'm out and about) and have a cable running from it to either the Clie or PB, then that would suck. This way it stays where ever I have it (pocket, bag, backpack, maybe even not on me, but close by). It's very nice being able to just whip out the Clie and start surfing instantly.

Now all that said, getting all this wonder and joy to work was a pain in the butt to say the least. Support for USB dongles is sketchy even under XP (OSX is better, but still requires tweaking). And having two different things trying to sync on the desktop can confuse the heck out of the software. But when it's all sorted out, its great.

So I would say, you aint really a nerd unless everything you buy from this point on has BT built in. If you are poo pooing it, take a look first, once you start using it, you aint ever gonna go back.

Re:BlueTooth Rocks!

[dadman]

I also have a DCR-PC120BT Sony DV camcorder with BT, but I haven't actually found a good use for it's BT support

Then you shall upgrade your NZ90 to UX50. The UX50 have a little program that lets you to remote control the 120BT with the video from the 120BT send directly to the UX50 like a remote view finder. It also do motion detection capture, timed recording, etc..

nobuddy pointed out that this is a dupe

[Anonymous Coward]

earlier article here

Re:nobuddy pointed out that this is a dupe

[EddWo]

WARNING - Above link points to this.

http://slashdot.org/users.pl?op=userclose

A phone with bluetooth

[way2trivial]

here's a nifty list of some amazing designs

http://www.nokia.com/nokia/0,8764,3455,00.html

BT Interoperability

[God'sAwayOnBusiness]

Part of Bluetooth's slow uptake is due, in part, to the fact that implementations from different vendors are often not interoperable. This is a symptom of vendors working from a SIG specification. Expect this to change when the IEEE finalizes BT in its 802.15 standard.

it could still be dead

[Eyston]

Just because devices are shipping with bluetooth support does mean anyone will actually use it (hello powerbook).

-Eyston

Re:it could still be dead

[Jord]

(hello powerbook)

Bluetooth works great on my powerbook. Connected to my BT keyboard mouse and printer and phone I have exactly ONE cord coming out of my notebook when I am at work or at home and have full connectivity.

You should look around, there are a lot bluetooth devices out there that "just work" with the powerbook.

Re:it could still be dead

[CrackedButter]

I have a 15" PB and while i "have" used the bluetooth its only because my uncle just bought a phone last week with it and sent me some pictures when we met up at a wedding. Since then i realised my phone has bluetooth but because it nokia it doesn't work with the PB. Nokia seem to implement something into their phones which causes incompatiblity...i dunno why either. Anyway, 2 people i know have used it and this is in little ole' england in a town called blackpool, not exactly one would think of as being a techno savvy city.

Nokia and Bluetooth

[wdavies]

I am very annoyed that Nokia still doesnt have blue tooth in any small form factor phone that I can buy in the US (let alone at AT&T Wireless). Just that huge monster 3650 and 2 expensive/overlt functional Sony Erricssons. I just want to synch a small phone wih my laptop too much to ask for? I dont want mMode, I dont want a camera, I just want 3 ounces of practicatlity and NO WIRES...

Winton

Re:Nokia and Bluetooth

[electrichamster]

Try the Sony Ericsson t68i, it sounds perfect for you.
I think you may have difficulty getting them in the US, but there are always a ton of them available on ebay.

Or you could buy mine (I'm after a p900) - only had one owner, a little granny that used it to call church on sundays...

Technology from 50,000 feet

[Doug Merritt]

Bluetooth will fail because [...]
Low speed, short range: 39KHz IR or 433MHz AM
High speed, short range: IRDA
High speed, long range: 802.11a/b/g

Can somebody tell me exactly where bluetooth's niche is?

From 50,000 feet many technologies look the same, so your bullet points don't really matter.

VHS beat Beta for secondary reasons, even though Beta was the better technology.

When the Amiga and the Atari ST came out to challenge the Mac, they looked alike from 50,000 feet (but short term, the ST won over the hearts of musicians and the Amiga won over the niche of video).

Back in the 60s, when IBM brought out EBCDIC to challenge ASCII, they looked the same from 50,000 feet, and there were religious wars.

These days there are religious wars over Java versus C++, even though they look the same from 50,000 feet (e.g. to a not very technical CEO).

But partisans always realize that God (or the Devil) "is in the details".

Now, you didn't mention "non-line-of-sight" explicitly, but that's one clear advantage of Bluetooth over IRDA, just as a BTW. The advantage of Bluetooth over 802.11blah is in positioning and intended use. People keep saying 802 could do everything Bluetooth is intended for, but there's no standard or marketing intention of having it do the same stuff that I've ever heard of.

P.S. what's this 433 Mhz AM that competes with Bluetooth? Never heard of it.

Re:Technology from 50,000 feet

[balloonpup]

433 Mhz AM: The technology that powers most wireless keyboards and mice, along with a few other things.

!(RIP BT)

[int2str]

> Working on Pocket PC/Windows Mobile/whatever is kinda expected

I am working on a implementation for a major PocketPC manufacturer. It will come, trust me.

> A reasonably inexpensive phone with BT

My wife and I just got not one, but two Ericsson T616 (with BT) for FREE. Look around the offers are out there.

> Weren't these chips supposed to cost like $5?

Yes, and they are starting to! If you go to csr.com right now you (end user) can buy a CSR bluecore module for $14 a piece (that's for 5). Put in a discount for large orders and you're probably pretty darn close to $5...

> Why am I nearly doubling the cost of a US$200 phone to get it?

You are not. No idea where you get that number from...

> I'd be happy with a phone that did nothing but dial in and out, with BT (interfacing with a headset, pda dialer, etc would be nice - eg to the point where I don't even need an onboard address book - if I do have one, I want to be able to sync it with the PIM of my choice, like outlook).

You can do ALL of these RIGHT NOW with a HP iPaq and a Bluetooth enabled phone (like the T616, T68i, Nokia 3650+++).

So before you declare Bluetooth RIP, some research would have been nice :).

Bluetooth can be really fun. Ask my wife. She's beaming Ringtones like crazy, synching her address book with outlook and surfing the net on her notebook.

Cheers,
Andre

Re:!(RIP BT)

[Anonymous Coward]

"Bluetooth can be really fun. Ask my wife."

I'll inquire the next time I'm porking her, but the last time she mentioned it, it was the vibrating ringer she enjoyed, not the BlueTooth.

well

[asv108]

I've seen wireless headsets all over the place. Toyota even has a Bluetooth enabled prius.

The reason why the numbers are up

[hayden]

The chips have fallen below a price where they're cheap enough to put into everything except the ultra low cost price bracket. Whether or not it's actually useful is a different matter and will be told by it actually being around in the next 5 years.

Re:The reason why the numbers are up

[dbIII]

The reason why Storm Troopers suck at everything has finally been explained. They're New Zealanders!

The order got messed up, and instead of the perfect army the Empire got the perfect Rugby Union team.

I don't think so

[binaryDigit]

then Apple started integrating it into their products... pushing the technology very hard

First let me start by saying that my primary computer at home is a PowerBook and I own more Mac's than most small third world countries. But I have to say that your statement is waaaay off base. I personally use BT myself (I have another post that details what) and it's absolutely phones (and headsets), pda's, and keyboard/mice that are driving BT sales. Now as far as pc's go (generic pc as in personal computers, not PC's as in Wintel), Apple is ahead of the curve, but it's not their adoption that's pushing sales, it's all these other devices. Apple is just smart enough to jump on board earlier than other manufacturers (as usual). So I'll give Apple all the credit in the world for being forwrad thinking, but they are NOT driving BT.

Re:I don't think so

[oscast]

it's not [Apple's] adoption that's pushing sales, it's all these other devices.

You are correct. What i was getting at was that nobody was making these devices until Apple supported the technology. Every PC OEM looked at BT with disdain, thus causing few if any hardware developers to make products that leverage the tchnology. Then, Apple decided to support it, more products were created, then PC OEMs followed suit.

You might say that Apple is the answer to the age old chicken and egg comparison. Developers wont come until there are users and users wont come until there are developers.

Re:I don't think so

[Juanvaldes]

I totally agree with you that apple is not pushing BT as a whole, but in the mac market they are helping to push the idea of BT. These new systems are lowering the barrier for entry of BT devices into a Mac users world. You already have the ability to use the device you just need to go out and buy one. Contrast this to having to out and buy the device AND a way to sync the data with your home computer. They are silently building up a ready market of people who can immediatly buy and use BT devices making them more appealing.

Re:I don't think so

[Anonymous Coward]

Certianly, part of why Apple gets so much attention when it comes to Bluetooth has to be MS's supposed horrid Bluetooth support, bastardization--or lack of it all together, as I understand.

But, it was the same way when USB came out. Apple adopted USB as the interconnect of choice between external computer components way before anyone else in the Intel world, and even before there were perhiperals designed to use it. First we seen keyboards and mice, then floppy and zip drives, CD writers, modems, scanners and joysticks and the list goes on.

It's the typical chicken and egg problem. Unless there is a signifigant push on the manufacturing side, or a very large demand for change on the consumer side, it won't happen. Right now, most people don't know what it is, what it does, or why they should want it. Same as USB in the beginning.

Re:I don't think so

[binaryDigit]

You are correct. What i was getting at was that nobody was making these devices until Apple supported the technology

Once again, I disagree. The current majority of the BT devices are used to support cell phones and pda's. KB/mice are very recent, and M$ had their BT enabled kb/mouse around the same time as Apple did (not sure who was precisely first, but they were close enough to call it even). In this case, I think Apple is helping to row a lot more than the Wintel world, but they didn't help push the boat into the water.

Re:I don't think so

[oscast]

"Once again, I disagree. The current majority of the BT devices are used to support cell phones and pda's. KB/mice are very recent, and M$ had their BT enabled kb/mouse around the same time as Apple did (not sure who was precisely first, but they were close enough to call it even" These devices only came after Apple created support for them in the operating system. When Apple and Microsoft created their own Bluetooth devices is irrelivant. What I'm getting at is the fact that Apple was the first major computer manufacturer/OS supplier to create support for the standard.

Yeah

[pbox]

Along the same (head)lines:

Ballpoint pen shipments exceed 1 billion per week.

Bluetooth isn't dead...

[Unominous Coward]

It's just suffering from gingivitis and other oral nasties that come with a competitive marketplace.

Bluetooth's gain is IrDA's loss

[gilesjuk]

Bluetooth isn't really adding a lot to our lives at this stage, it's more of a replacement for infrared links and hotsync cables.

Of course once TVs VCRs etc.. start supporting it then we'll see the true advantage of it. Programming your VCR from a PDA, turning the oven off with your laptop and so on.

Re:Bluetooth's gain is IrDA's loss

[QueenOfSwords]

Hopefully. IR line-of-sight is just annoying.

Re:Bluetooth's gain is IrDA's loss

[Anonymous Coward]

Bluetooth isn't really adding a lot to our lives at this stage

You must not be a Mac user.

Bluetooth is dying...

[Ilan Volow]

...to be on your cellphone, on your computer, in your blender, in your food processor, and any other battery-powered self-pleasure device of your choice.

Go BlueTooth!

Get a Nokia 6310i

[sjbe]

I am very annoyed that Nokia still doesnt have blue tooth in any small form factor phone that I can buy in the US (let alone at AT&T Wireless).

I have Nokia's 6310i and use AT&T Wireless. There are smaller phones, but it's pretty compact, doesn't have a lot of stupid & unnecessary bells & whistles (like a color screen, camera, etc) and has great battery life and reception. I'm pretty happy with it. It's slicker than heck to dial wirelessly.

Only real problem is that Nokia's software for connecting to a laptop sucks sour frog ass. It works for some people but it's very hit/miss and Nokia tells you to try a different bluetooth device if it doesn't work. (my response was uhh no, I think they should make the software work... the device works fine) Fortunately I can work around their software most of the time.

Re:Get a Nokia 6310i

[WARM3CH]

Try to upgrade the firmware for your 6310i to version 5.5 or above and all the bugs get fixed. btw, ever tried to use your 6310i with your laptop via bluetooh as a fax machine? That's cool ;)

Re:Get a Nokia 6310i

[sjbe]

Try to upgrade the firmware for your 6310i to version 5.5 or above and all the bugs get fixed.

Yeah, that's actually the next thing I was going to do. Unfortunately there is no place in my city that can do it so I have to mail the phone off for a week. Very annoying...

Re:Get a Nokia 6310i

[wdavies]

Sweet thanks for the info - no why doesn't it come up on ATT under Blue Tooth phones :) On my way to go shopping :) Thank you again!

Winton

Re:Get a Nokia 6310i

[wdavies]

For us Mac Heads with their shiny new Powerbooks, here's a LONG discussion of iSync and 6310i.

http://canikickit.org/archives/gadgets/000074.sh tm l

I just spent 10 minutes on the phone to ATT WS, and they arent sure if they stock em any more...

Winton

Re:Get a Nokia 6310i

[sjbe]

Sweet thanks for the info - no why doesn't it come up on ATT under Blue Tooth phones :)

It doesn't seem to be a phone they are pushing. (no idea why, it's a great phone) I found mine in one of AT&T's stores and even got an $80 rebate. I presume you could buy it from Nokia or a vendor (say, Amazon) and use it with AT&T.

One item to consider, you may want to send it off for a firmware upgrade (at least version 5.5) to ensure the bluetooth works smoothly. Took me a while to find out about that.

Logitech is putting a big effort into BT

[Anonymous Coward]

Of Bluetooth products, Logitech is releasing the MX900 mouse, Cordless Desktop MX BT and the DiNovo keyboard these days. The DiNovo is a big fancy keyboard and mouse combo where the numpad also is a detachable calculator/remote control for Windows Media Player. It also has a display where you can receive instant messages, see song titles and get e-mail notifications.

Even though not officially out yet, the helpdesk has been getting several calls the last week about it. It goes basically like this:
"Yeah, I plugged in the receiver, and the mouse and keyboard worked, but then I installed the CD, and now the mouse doesn't work anymore."
Basically what happens, is that it works in embedded mode (Either only the keyboard with the PS2 connector, or both keyboard and mouse if the mainboard has USB legacy support), but when installing the stack, it (the stack, that is) will try to communicate with the hub directly. The customer wants to know why it worked, and why it does not work after installing the software. Making the average home user understand how to connect a standard cordless RF desktop set is hard enough some times, but this winter sure will be hell.

Re:802.11? Nope, not even close.

[binaryDigit]

He mentioned breadth of adoption. Wifi is wonderful, but it's use is limited to computer type devices (e.g. PC's, PDA's). Whereas BT is popping up everywhere, if you don't see it, you aren't looking. Wireless keyboards and mice, cell phones, pda's, headsets, printers, camcorders, digital cameras. You might think that wireless kb/mice are not worthwhile, but I know a significant number of people (esp laptop users) who would absolutely disagree.

BTW, 802.11 has been around forever. The current 11mbps standard was preceded by a 2mbps version that was around years ago, waaay before BT.

Bleujacking ?

[Mayk]

I just found this page, about bleujacking becoming verry polular.. kinda funny.. http://www.bluejackq.com/

My computer sees more than I do

[morcheeba]

When I use my mac in coffeeshops, I'll often get a message offering to connect to someone's phone. I don't think I've seen a bluetooth headset yet, and none of my friends have a bluetooth phone.

You must be using Windows

[Corpus_Callosum]

If you were using OS X, you would want Bluetooth in your phone... Believe me.

Windows XP... $399
Good cellphone... $300
Another good cellphone, after you lost your last one at the bar... $300
Re-entering all your phone numbers... Impossible...

Automagic syncing of your addressbook with iSync and Bluetooth... Priceless...

No Java Bluetooth for Ericsson

[Anonymous Coward]

The technology has reached critical mass, with several books on how to write your own applications with the technology, including Java for those of you who want to create your own Bluetooth apps for your SonyEricsson P900"

Of course if you take the time to read the article here:

http://www.javabluetooth.com/software.html

You'd see that Ericsson's SDK does not support Bluetooth. This was one of my reasons for getting a T610 so I could write Java programs especially using Bluetooth. Unfortunately you can't do it.

Bluetooth audio

[digitaleus]

Something I'd be keen to see is digital audio over bluetooth. My living room has a stereo with a sizeable list of stuff plugged into it - but the list is hardly extraordinary.

• External CD Player
• PC
• DVD
• VCR
• Turntables
• (radio built into the amp)

The result? A clutter of tables and periodic fiddling behind the back of my stereo to change cables (not enough inputs).

It would be nice if all of the sound devices could connect to the amp, and the amp would give me a little LCD menu of the devices. And when someone brings over their latest sound toy, the amp would pick it up and add it to the menu. No cables, no hassles.

Re:Bluetooth audio

[Anonymous Coward]

..and no Quality.

Bluetooth wasn't made to handle raw audio streams, it simply does not have the bandwidth. You would also need to consider latency (very important in sound). To be honest, if I had a quality, low latency, wireless method of sending audio (not bluetooth), I'd like to see it standardised and used for speakers. Laying speaker cable around a room is a fuck in the nut.

Re:Bluetooth audio

[Jinxo]

There's just no way BT could provide the data throughput required to have any kind of decent sound (I won't even think about video) quality out of the connections you describe. Remember, without analogue connections (cables), you are in I-need-serious-kbps-power land.

Re:Bluetooth audio

[Mwongozi]

Sadly, Bluetooth doesn't have the bandwidth for CD-quality audio unless you compress it fairly heavily. It's more than adequate for telephone-quality audio, that's what it was designed for (amoungst other things), but nothing beyond that.

Re:Bluetooth audio

[Bertie]

I dunno about that. It'll do 1MB/sec in theory, and most devices seem comfortable at 750k/sec. Now, I'm not absolutely sure off the top of my head, but wouldn't that be enough bandwidth to stream a losslessly-encoded audio file in FLAC or something?

How many is...

[BurKaZoiD]

...so, just how many is 1M? Doesn't sound so impressive to me.

Re:Bleujacking ? Go back to France

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, maybe that's what goes on in terrorist-appeasing France, but here in the manly, red meat-eating US of A it's blUEjacking, you cheese-eating surrender monkey.

Since when does Enablement == Useful?

[siberian]

Its still a useless, slow, range-limited application specific technology that does nothing of substance other then syncing your addressbook with your PC on specific models or using it to send messages around a conference table during a meeting.

Every PC I have ever had contains an ISA slot, does that mean I use it? No, not really. Sure, its old technology but the idea holds, presence does equate to penetration.

Useless useless useless.

Well of course.

[ryanw]

Not really that hard to get that number with every APPLE device and a handfull of variant big named companies with bluetooth enabled phones, keyboards, and mice. But whether or not people use those features in their phones or other devices that have bluetooth is another question. I thought bluetooth would be awesome. But the bandwidth is too low to do anything great with it.

not just bluetooth

[rnd()]

I don't mind having bluetooth in a device... in fact, I would prefer to have it... but I don't want to exclude wifi in order to obtain bluetooth.

Shame about the a920 - why disable Bluetooth?

[Anonymous Coward]

Worst of all, it has bluetooth hardware but it is disabled in software for some insane reason. And it uses Symbian which is known to support bluetooth!

11% is not a large number

[msgmonkey]

Well I would n't say every single mobile device is Bluetooth enabled. One million units per week is n't even that large a number considering, around 450 million mobile phones will be sold this year. So if all of that one million are phones, that's just over 11% of phones have bluetooth.

The reason some phones don't have IrDA is because Bluetooth is the new IrDA, i.e. not a "killer" feature (at the moment) but useful if you need it. Where Bluetooth and IrDA differ is Bluetooth is much more complicated and expensive to implement compared to IrDA which has not helped its adoption.

You bet. Bluetooth SIG Adopts Bluetooth v1.2.Nov 6

[abhisarda]

Would a dying standard be releasing a new specification version? Don't think so.

The naysayers can eat their statements. Wifi wasn't cheap and took a while to take hold. Same case with bluetooth.
The Palm Tungsten 3 does not include a wifi chip but a bluetooth one. Because a wifi chip takes up more power. For portable devices, bluetooth will become de facto in the coming year.

I don't know.

[TheOnlyCoolTim]

I live in New York City, and while there's two places within thirty seconds of my front door that have WiFi access, I've never seen or heard of Bluetooth being used.

Tim

Re:I don't know.

[dadman]

I live in Hong Kong now and a quick random BT scan on a bus or a ferry give at least 2 BT phones and sometime PDAs. The most I got is during rush hours and 6 BT phones (most of them are, unsuprisingly, SE T610), 4 PDAs around me on the underground (aka the MTR).

Re:I don't know.

[simon_hzero]

Yup, seems like Europe, Australia/NZ and South East Asia have a high Bluetooth penetration whereas North America is far behind.

WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH /. ???

[rastachops]

Bluetooth has never been 'dying' - I really don't know why /. keeps posting this FUD. It's certainly very popular here in UK and is great for transferring files from Phone -> Phone or Phone -> Laptop.

Re:WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH /. ???

[FreezerJam]

What's wrong is that /. is mainly a U.S. thing.

The Bluetooth market looks a whole lot different in Canada and the U.S. We have four major cell carriers in Canada, and there are about two Bluetooth phone models available in the country. The largest carrier doesn't have any at all. To start using Bluetooth on my phone, I'd have to ditch my cellular provider.

Cost is still a huge issue. I can get a cellular phone for about C$50. But if I want a Bluetooth phone, it's about C$500. So I better have a good use for it - like a Bluetooth headset. Which costs another C$180, instead of C$30 for a wired one. Nobody is offering signup deals for high-end phones.

As to your uses - I'm curious as to why you transfer files from one phone to another. Most phones here don't support or need files. As to phone to laptop, if it is part of connecting wirelessly, then that makes sense. But it is increasingly likely that a WiFi hotspot will be nearby, providing higher total bandwidth than the Bluetooth connection can even support. For the rest of the time, a connector cable gets that C$50 phone connected to my laptop acting as a 14.4 modem. Not fast, but there if I need it.

Re:WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH /. ???

[fyonn]

The largest carrier doesn't have any at all. To start using Bluetooth on my phone, I'd have to ditch my cellular provider.

hmm.. that's interesting. are you forced to only use the phone you bought from the carrier? here in the uk you can buy any phone, move your sim card into it and be happy. so had the phone I bought not had bluetooth (it did), I could go into a shop and buy a phone with it and then put my sim card in and bob would be my uncle.

dave

Re:WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH /. ???

[BlameFate]

I'm curious as to why you transfer files from one phone to another.

To beam Address Book contacts to buddies without having to read out the phone number they want and wait for them to type it in to their handset, to share amusingly-snapped pictures with friends in the same way, Bluejacking.

I agree with your post from your position though, two years ago the UK was in pretty much the same position and I can remember hearing the hype about the new Bluetooth phones coming and thinking 'what's the use of that? my phone is just great now'. Over here thought it seems to have developed through a push from the handset manufacturers deciding we need it rather than any consumer-driven movement, and now that it's fairly ubiquitous it's quite a cool toy (bluejacking, sharing photos), plus it does fairly useful stuff (sharing contacts, text messages, notes, memos).

Re:WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH /. ???

[gorilla]

Again in Canada, most phones don't have SIM cards. Only one of the 4 major networks uses GSM and has SIM cards.

Re:WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH /. ???

[proj_2501]

you can use any GSM phone you wish, but the provider will only fix phones you bought from them. my brother took his sim out of his free t306 and put it in his t68i, mostly because he could use bluetooth!

gsm is not as common as other networks (tdma or cdma, whichever it is), however.

Re:WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH /. ???

[rastachops]

Well over here in the UK phones are much more popular than the other side of the pond. Me and a fair few friends have camera phones & bluetooth and it's fun to swap pictures & ringtones.

With phone to laptop I'd never connect to the net wirelessly as it's just far too expensive. I use my T610 with a new Powerbook and OS X has some very good bluetooth features. Address book allows me to sync my phone with OS X and send SMS messages to people without me having to touch the phone. Also I can control OS X with the Salling Clicker - use it for Powerpoint presentations, changing music on iTunes, moving the mouse, etc. So I have a lot of uses for Bluetooth :)

Bluetooth in Autos

[L33tMafia187]

Considering Bluetooth-enabled cars are part of this sales figure, it's no surprise. The Saab 9-3, Acura TL, and Dodge Ram can have Bluetooth as OEM equipment.

Qualcomm

[barnaclebarnes]

Qualcomm is the sole supplier of CDMA chipsets and have not released a BT chipset to work with their phones. Therfore all CDMA phones whether made by Nokia or someone else cannot ship with Bluetooth builtin. Nokia do make BT phones..Nokia N-Gage (GSM), 3650 (GSM), 3600 (GSM) and 7650 (GSM).

I know Nextel does not use the GSM and infact I _may_ be wrong in the fact that they use CDMA (maybe TDMA?). Just checking out their website it looks like all their phones are shit compared to whats available on the GSM networks.

Trust me, the Ericsson t610 for an everyday phone is great and if you want more PDA functionality then the p800/p900 is the way to go. Not to sure about the Nokias as I have been an Ericsson user for the last 3 years.

They are not necessary exclusive...

[dadman]

SONY's PDA, Notebooks(Japanese only, use the fish), Apple's PowerBooks, are a few examples of BT+WiFi implementations. I am sure there are many other similar coming.

Speaking of wireless..

[Anonymous Coward]

Speaking of wireless... I'm currently looking for an 802.11g PCI wireless NIC for a spare machine I have that I'll be putting Linux on. Can anyone recommend a card that works *well* with Linux? I did some searching online and all I could find was 10,000 other people asking the same question. I did specific searches for the Netgear MG311 and found a lot of people who had the card but couldn't get it to work with Linux. Same thing with the Linksys WMP54G. And finally I looked on linux-wlan.org at their list of cards but the list doesn't say specifically which cards work and which don't.

I do have an extra Orinoco 802.11b PCMCIA card that I could use but A.) I'm not sure what PCI adapater to buy and B.) The PCI adapters cost almost as much as a new 802.11g PCI card.

Depends on how you use

[dadman]

I use BT to sync my calendars and address books between my PDA, Notebook, and Phone. I also use to do some small file ( click "Send via BT" -> click to choose the device -> click Send. 4 clicks in total, not bad.)
BTW, not only Apple but other brands also got BT built-in. SONY's latest VIAO(Japanese only, use the fish) is one such example.

I'm doing my bit

[Kris_J]

I have seven BT devices, mind you compatibily across brands is somewhat lacking.

[OT] How to conf OS X to serve as a RAS for BT

[dadman]

Does anybody know how to configure a Mac (OS X, Panther) to serve as a RAS for a PDA using BT? I have read something similar on Linux involving the pppd (link forgotten 'coz I didn't have that need back then) but I don't know how to do this on the Panther.

I've got WLAN on my PDA but it eats battery much faster then BT does.

Thanks a lot.

To add 120% more wow factor, better check ...

[dadman]

the Salling Clicker.

It's a little program installed on your Mac and let you remote control your Mac including Powerpoint, DVD player, etc. via your BT phones.
Works on any Mac with BT, and SE BT phones except P800. Not sure about P900, though.

---

No, I don't work for Salling or know him personally (except with a few emails). I am just a happy user. That's all

Not the new IRDA, beyond

[hughk]

Blutooth is not the new IRDA, it is way beyond it because of the absent line-of-sight requirement which radically increases the number of applications. This is why bluetooth headphones exist.

Bluetooth isn't significantly more complicated to implement now, there is an issue which you have missed and that is the power drain which remains relatively high (and higher even than IRDA).

Re:Not the new IRDA, beyond

[msgmonkey]

I'm well aware that Bluetooth is radio and IrDA is infrared, that was n't my point. My point is that it was the new feature that many people dont use or don't use to the full.

Bluetooth is much more complicated than IrDA to implement, you can implement IrDA as easily as hooking up a transceiver to an 8-bit micrcontroller the same however could not be said of Bluetooth.

Re:Not the new IRDA, beyond

[hughk]

Actually, quite the reverse. IRDA was used for linking to PDAs and Notebooks by mobile geeks others found it too complicated. It was crufty to set up so wasn't popular. It was also used to send vCards.

But that was all. Bluetooth is proving a lot more useful because you don't have to carefully line up your accessories. The features that are currrently selling are fairly basic things like wireless headsets.

As for cost, well that is coming down as the silicon gets cheaper. My concern is as mentioned, the power drain.

Surfing the net via GPRS - not for a while...

[Nailer]

Bluetooth can be really fun. Ask my wife. She's beaming Ringtones like crazy, synching her address book with outlook and surfing the net on her notebook.

Yeah, I've been surfing the net with bluetooth (and GPRS) too. My phone bill for last month is around $1400 Australian.

Not sure if the US is as bad, but I have a feeling it might be.

Re:Surfing the net via GPRS - not for a while...

[tfb]

I don't know about surfing the net, but I use CVS tunnelled over ssh via BT / GPRS all the time. It's really bandwidth-efficient, and I can write stuff anywhere there's mobile coverage (not just in the few places where there happens to be WiFi).

Re:Surfing the net via GPRS - not for a while...

[ChicagoBiker]

I did that with my AT&T wireless T68i for 3 days while I was between DSL providers. Bad idea.

AT&T billed me $640 for 50Mb of downloaded data @ something like $13 a Mb.

I argued with them how they could let a $49 a month subscription run up to 11 times it's normal cost without shutting off the handset or calling me, and they said; tough, pay up.

I found it interesting though when I didn't pay up that they shut off the handset 1 minute after it was "overdue" and called me the next day to collect. Strange how that works in the other direction.

I told them I couldn't pay the bill all at once, they didn't want to hear it. So I just doubled the monthly subscription payments and sent that. After 2 months they canceled the contract and charged me $200 for early termination, then charged off the account to a collection agency. I'm now paying the collection agency double what the normal monthly subscription would have been. Should be finished up sometime in 2005.

I'll never be an AT&T customer, for anything, again, ever!

Umm.. now wait a minute...

[Anonymous Coward]

You're from the 'States, right? Right.

GSM/CDMA anyone?

[quinkin]

GSM and CDMA (1990-ish and 1996 respectively from memory).

I think I can say with some certainty that both of these wireless communication technologies have acheived a FAR higher volume of deployments.

As to diversity I am not so sure, but I do know of quake sensors, vending machines, heart monitors, etc. all of which use one of the above technologies.

Q.

will there be 2 standards - US and EU?

[KlingMan1]

It seems that 2 different standards are now competing - Wi-Fi and Bluetooth... one is better for Data as far as I understand (Wi-Fi) and one better for voice (Bluetooth). It seems to me like a new evolutionary phase in wireless and it reminds me the standard issues of EU that chose to push GSM wireless tech, while N. America favored CDMA... This might evolve in the same way here where each continent adopted the technology that best fits it's culture - the EU people have a much higher cellular subscription rate and they talk much more, whereas Americans use PDAs and data driven devices much more... This is going to be interesting :)

You need experience

[JohnLi]

I don't know about anyone else, but i just got a sonny/ericsson t610, and the bluetooth is the best part. i went and got a 40 dollar usb bluetooth adapter, and was real pleased with what i could do. remote internet access...no silly cables to deal with. In fact, the other day i realized how close some of this stuff is to sci-fi communicators.. press a button next to your ear, say a name, talk. the phone i got comes witha camera...i can take a picture, transfer it to the computer, edit it, the bring it back..all in about a minute( depending on whose head im trying to put on whose body ). I dont actualy see, even after reading most of these posts, what ppls problem is whith it. its like hateing a parralell port...wtf?

floppy disk drives sell millions too

[mstamat]

Shipping a million units does not mean a thing. Floppy disk drives still sell millions but they are considered dead for good, practically used ony on emergency situations. Bluetooth is pretty much the same, it sells millions because it is integrated into things you would buy anyway, but its use is limited.

Floppy drives still exist because there is no really cheap replacement for them. IR eclipsed only because Bluetooth was pushed in the market, and it does the same thing better at ~ the same price. I call that zombie-techs: Technologies that are dead, but they don't know it until another technology tells them. Bluetooth is the latest zombie-tech.

I think that in the end Bluetooth will be replaced by Zigbee for low-end devices and wifi for high-end.

Re:You can thank Apple for this

[Xenna]

I think you have a point there. I was shopping for a subnotebook recently. The 12" PB was a candidate, but my other considerations (a Dell X300 and a Sony with a hard to remember typeno) all offered integrated BT and Wifi. They also offered firewire and nice metal finishings.

IMHO they looked like they were made to compete with the Apple Powerbooks.

I have a Dell X300 notebook now, with MS BT mouse, a t68i BT phone, a Clie TG50 BT PDA and a wonderful BT car kit. BT support is a key feature for me when I'm shopping for something new.

BT may be as good as dead but it sure works great...

X.

bluetooth and linux

[DataDevil]

Since redhats' 'hobbyist' release of Fedora Core 1, there is very good bluetooth support in Linux, in both GUI and CLI. Other distros also support bluetooth, for more information see (shameless plug) my page on http://datadevil.papuaos.org/docs/bluetooth.php .

Bluetooth is the new IrDA?

[XNormal]

You mean that Bluetooth is the new technology that everybody has but almost nobody uses?

Bluetooth is not cool

[iamacat]

But it could be, with a little work. Basically, higher speed at close range and bigger maximum range. As it is, I can't really download mp3 by putting a player on the same table as my PC or walk around my appartment with bluetooth headphones.I know about 802.11* but it would be nice if power consumption was only high when needed, not constantly.

I have 7 BT devices - never used BT though ...

[Anonymous Coward]

So what that they are selling ?

I have arund 7 of them but never used BT in them anyway. Somehow Irda works better for me.

And I do not want anything in the 2.4GHz
range - my wi-Fi is too precious to me ...

Responsible for 3 BT Sales

[Wanderer1]

Last week I purchased a Sony Ericsson T610 and naturally bought adapters for my Mac desktop and Pocket PC.

I'm very pleased with the setup, using my PDA with T-Mobile's flat rate GPRS service, I can sit here on my morning commute and catch up on the latest flamebait.
(I'm on the train presently.)

The phone is in my belt holster, so I need only keep up with the PDA. Could get a "smartphone" and lose even that.

My phoneline failed Wednesday taking my DSL with it, so I used the phone with my desktop despite being on opposite ends of the house. Slower than DSL, but good for ~2K/sec.

Naturaly I sync the phone with my PC, but BT also enables exchanging contacts with other BT equipped PDAs and phones. Infrared is also available.

As with pen computers, I believe the value of BT isn't obvious until one experiences the application.

Bill

Interesting

[Sycraft-fu]

You quote a sentence and yet miss one of the statements. I explicitly call Firewire "an Apple product". I well know who was responsible for the design. My argument is that it is not because Firewire is something to come out of Apple that it does well, but because it is good for DV and DA. It is an example of something that Apple CREATED, but still were not the sole or primary force behind adoption.

I do not claim that Apple does not creat products that become major. To claim that is foolish and false. However many fanboys seem to believe that it is because it's APPLE that something does well. If Apple makes it, it's great and a huge success (one word counter argument: Appletalk), or when Apple adopts it it will take off and become huge (one word counter argument: DVD-RAM). I argue that Apple doesn't drive something any more than any other company, and less than many. Their adoption of something helps, the more sales something has the more of a success it is, but it does not make or break it.

Salling Clicker

[Anonymous Coward]

Woah, just the usage of Salling Clicker (www.salling.com) with my Sony Ericsson T610 and Powerbook makes Bluetooth worth while..

Bluetooth cameras

[Loconut1389]

What if someone made a high res digital SLR with bluetooth and developed a little hard drive box with bluetooth. Then say a wedding photographer could shove his 300gb bluetooth hard drive box in the corner of a room, and take pictures to his hearts content at massive megapixels and not worry about space. It would be fast and transparent. Then take the box home, shove an ethernet cable into the back and access the pictures, or usb, or hot swap HD rails. There are so many things bluetooth could do that nobodys doing yet.

Re:RIP BT [warning!]

[Anonymous Coward]

the 6310i supports "Nokia Bluetooth", i.e. has very shoddy bluetooth support, be sure to look into it if you buy this phone for the bluetooth capability!

--
CSLib Menace

Bluetooth is definitely growing

[Anonymous Coward]

As much as people like to harrass the Bluetooth SIG and the products that incorporate Bluetooth technology, we need to open up and realize that the commercial sector is embracing Bluetooth wireless technology. It is convenient and easy, and I find it difficult to believe that anybody can truly deny that. So I feel like everyone should move on from their archaic beliefs of the days when Bluetooth was first introduced and accept the fact that improvements have been made, prices have gone down, sales have gone up and people like it. From a consumer standpoint, I was just introduced to the products, and if I'd never read up on the past, I wouldn't have any idea of why everyone seems to tear Bluetooth apart so much. So why don't we all just stand back and let it succeed. It's a special interest group, not a bloodthirsty company. Let them thrive the way they would if you'd all give them the endorsement they deserve.

Amen to that!

[tish tish]

Seriously people--give it up with the Bluetooth is dead crap. Look at the numbers. People like it. Let them. Do you get your jollies from trying to find imaginary wrongs with stuff? Get over it.