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. :)

Interesting.

[Ikeya]

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

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

[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

[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.

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

[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? :)

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?

[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?

[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?

[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.

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?

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?

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

[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.

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.

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.

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....

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.

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: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.

!(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

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.

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: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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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).