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Bluetooth Gets Faster & Requires Less Power
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."
A faster Bluetooth. With my Sony Ericsson T616 speeds are laughable and slow and maybe now Bluetooth will finally be able to maximize its potential and actually start to compete with other wireless specs.
And the power consumption. A gift from the heavens. Bluetooth lowers my cellphones standby to about a 8 hours with no calls.
With all the new wireless technologies coming out, (wireless USB, wireless IEEE 1394, etc.) will this be enough to save the failing bluetooth. I use a Microsoft BlueTooth keyboard and mouse and while it is the best keyboard and mouse combo I've ever used, the lack of market saturation cost me $160.
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By compressing more data per packet, do they just mean they are using a better compression algorithm, or larger packets? The first should only help a little and for some uses, the second could theoretically make a lot more of a difference. But the less-power usage will be good anyhow.
Now that bluetooth is considered a more mature specification since they managed to make a specification update without having to break backward compatability.
Maybe it is time for more bluetooth enabled printers and external devices. I wouldn't mind keeping the printer in the other room.
Push harder towards Open Media/Content
The IEEE standard for Bluetooth is 802.15.3. The 802.15.3a standard is a revision for the standard using UWB signaling. It promises data rates of > 100Mbps plus lower power.
There's lots of cool things to do with Bluetooth but nobody'll implement it because they're all dumb.
1) Cell phone "submissiveness" - an establishment (like a movie theater or a school) installs a device that causes your BT-enabled phone to shutthehellup. When this happens, the phone beeps once to notify the user of the situation. The user can opt out if he/she wishes.
2) Tire pressures - to go along with our RFID license plates, our tires could tell our cell phones (or the dashboard) if they are low on pressure.
3) Coupons - a person's cell phone (once again) could be configured to receive (or not) coupons at the grocery store upon entering.
4) Wireless peripherals - the biggest usability problem with PCs these days is the rats nest behind (or on top of, in front of) the damn things. Holy shit... Some of you know what I'm talking about. This is crazy.
Sure - it was all a nice thought and some of it even made it (I have a wireless keyboard that could have used the BT standard but didn't for WHO KNOWS what reason) but now we've got wireless-serial-attached-SCSI and every other damn wireless specification coming. Great!
What the industry needs is an independent board to regulate this stuff. Intel doesn't like Firewire so they codevelop USB. Great! If we had a board that could pick a standard, we wouldn't be stuck with this cruft. Don't get me wrong - 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".
Sure - Intel does have clout but you still have to buy a separate USB cable for that iPod (usually a second trip to the store, too).
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