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Bluetooth Gets Faster & Requires Less Power

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the i-tought-bluetooth-was-already-dead dept.

An anonymous reader writes "The Bluetooth Special Interest Group (BSIG) has announced a new specification named "Enhanced Data Rate" or EDR for short. EDR aims to provide faster data transmission and reduce the power consumption from traditional Bluetooth technology. The data speeds will be roughly three times faster which means you could easily use multiple Bluetooth devices simultaneously. The reduced power consumption also means longer battery life and less heat generated. The new EDR standard will be backward compatible with the current standard Bluetooth devices. This makes upgrading to the new standard effortless."

13 of 158 comments (clear)

  1. Neat... by Anonvmous+Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    ... but I'm having to fight a little too hard to find neat things to do with Bluetooth. I made my laptop connecton the net once with my cell phone... but.. uh yeah.

    1. Re:Neat... by System.out.println() · · Score: 4, Insightful

      What the industry needs is an independent board to regulate this stuff. Intel doesn't like Firewire so they codevelop USB.

      First of all, we have such a body - it's called the IEEE. And I'm sure a number of other bodies I've never heard of as well.

      As for Intel developing USB because it didn't like FW... I don't think that's accurate. Firewire and USB are good at different things (FW is better at sending video, for example, but would be less than ideal for a mouse or keyboard due to cost) and can+should happily coexist on your computer.

      I'm all about having freedom but it would be nice if the industry said, "we like this standard - go ahead and develop that other crap but we will only endorse this".

      I don't think you realize that's exactly what's happening. Bluetooth and Wifi have been accepted, and while the others may come, they'll likely be considered "extras". (Wifi and bluetooth, like USB and Firewire, are good at different things - power vs. range and bandwidth, in this case)

      --
      I've got more mod points and GMail invi
    2. Re:Neat... by System.out.println() · · Score: 2, Insightful

      USB gives combination decent speed + backward compatibility. A lot of PC's still don't have Firewire ports, unfortunately.

      Hey what happens if you attach a device compatible with both Firewire and USB2 to both ports on your PC?

      Depends on the drive, it'll either (1) ignore the second plug, or (2), mount twice, I'm guessing.

      --
      I've got more mod points and GMail invi
  2. Good News... by Piranhaa · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Good news for bluetooth for sure. The backwards compatibility is a really nice touch too. Bluetooth was lacking any upgrades for some time really, but reducing power consumption, while making it much faster was a really good change. One of the problems people faced with bluetooth was the data transfer speeds (excluding the range of it compared with wifi). This could allow bluetooth to become much more popular than it has been in the past...

  3. Nintendo by Grey+Ninja · · Score: 5, Insightful

    It should be well known by now that Nintendo is putting 802.11 and Bluetooth on the Nintendo DS. I am quite curious if this will make it there, as the DS would benefit from this GREATLY. Nintendo is downright vicious when it comes to defending battery life of their handhelds, so it's entirely possible.

    We can always hope, right?

  4. Now what we need... by Fnkmaster · · Score: 4, Insightful

    What we need is a truly wireless desktop. Bluetooth is nice, but there are still power cords everywhere, or lots of batteries to replace or recharge. I'd like to have a single DC power standard, and a transfer mechanism for getting that power to my peripherals. Some sort of pad that you sit things down on (your cell phone, mouse, keyboard, PDA, whatever) so they get charged when you aren't using them. Now that'd be something I'd pay for.

    1. Re:Now what we need... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Imagine a hub for connecting power to devices....

      That standard is power bar thar runs 120V AC (or 220 or 240 depending on where you are).

      What this obsession about cordless and wireless for desktop ? I cannot understand the urge of adding cost, latency, batteries and junk to a desktop.

  5. Too young to fail by ChozCunningham · · Score: 2, Insightful
    It's better to think of Bluetooth to date as fetal, not immature. This new spec might be it's birth, finally.

    I was explaining a file format to a friend recently. He said, "is that like bluetooth or something?" I was a bit stumped. After I explained what bluetooth was, he said, "why the hell would I want that? Can't the wifi I've got do all that?" And so on for about 5 minutes...

    Of course, it's not his fault, as much as the dubious packaging of blutooth-enabled products vendors...

    --
    Looks good for your age..
  6. More saturated than any other short-range wireless by thefinite · · Score: 4, Insightful
    I, for one, have yet to see *any* commercially available product with wireless USB. I first read about it quite a while ago. Wireless FireWire was just barely approved. While people are optimistic about it, I imagine Bluetooth with still enjoy lower power requirements.

    I guess my point is that there is nothing else available right now that does what Bluetooth does. Market adoption is *increasing*, if slowly. Bluetooth is far from failing. The truth is that right now, it's the only game in town. More personally, I love it and use it every day. My heart wouldn't be broken if something better replaced it, but in the meantime, improvements like lower power and faster data transfer are welcome.

    --
    Boom Shanka
  7. Pricing? by Erwos · · Score: 4, Insightful

    The issue with regards to me adopting bluetooth has been more about the absurd pricing of said peripherals. The Linksys Bluetooth desktop (and not the fancy-shmancy Nuvo or whatever the hell it's called) runs like a hundred bucks, whereas the plain old wireless one runs for closer to $50. That's not an insubstantial difference.

    After a brief glance at Amazon, it also looks like you can't get BT phones unless they're for AT&T or T-Mobile. Considering that GSM coverage here in the USA seems to be kinda spotty compared to, say, TDMA, that's a serious drawback.

    The problem with BT right now is that it's an integration technology, yet it's difficult to use an integration technology that doesn't have wide-spread usage.

    -Erwos

    --
    Plausible conjecture should not be misrepresented as proof positive.
  8. Hearing Impaired by Yonder+Way · · Score: 4, Insightful

    So when am I going to be able to get a Bluetooth-enabled hearing aid so I can interface with my PC, my cell phone and other devices? Hearing aids seem like one of the killer apps for Bluetooth yet they don't seem to exist yet.

  9. Re:Yes, but will this be enough? by Jeff+DeMaagd · · Score: 2, Insightful

    I don't understand it much either.

    Some people seem to act as if "everybody" has to have or have heard of something in order to consider that something successful. Even if 95% of any particular population have no use for something, the remaining 5% might find an indispensible use for which it can find a strong niche.

    Take Apple for example. We've gotten monthly predictions of their demise but somehow they still manage to mske a product that some people want and have a fair amount of liquid assets to boot.

  10. Re:What about Ultra-Wideband? by dave420 · · Score: 2, Insightful

    In a much, much larger form factor, and for a greatly increased price. You've missed why bluetooth is so good at what it does - it costs cents to include on a device, and takes up hardly any room. WIFI, WUSB, WFirewire and every other sort of wireless technology don't offer those features, which is why bluetooth is a great success, even if most of the US doesn't think so.