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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."
... 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.
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.
... now I can move my bed even farther away from my desk and still be able to use my wireless keyboard. Rock.
You could pick up toothing.
________
Entranced by anime since late summer 2001 and loving it ^_^
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.
"Here's a spoiler: You're will die alone."-Triumph the Insult Comic Dog
Oh man, I thought I was so slick getting BlueTooth built into my PowerBook... Now I need a dongle :-(
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...
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.
but I'm having to fight a little too hard to find neat things to do with Bluetooth.
Obviously you haven't been paying attention to the latest anonymous sex trend with Bluetooth nicknamed "toothing".
"Provided by the management for your protection."
Or can I just upgrade my Bluetooth dongle firmware?
???
Only Steve knows for sure...
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
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?
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.
You can't compare the two. Bluetooth uses a much lower power consumption and is meant for very low-range transfers (1 milliwatt and 30 ft, respectively) where Wi-Fi uses 100 milliwatts and goes up to 300 feet.
They're used for different things; local/personal -area transfers vs. high-speed internet connections.
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.
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..
Oh you tought that did you? Maybe you should tink again.
vampirical
Maybe now I can leave bluetooth active on my cellphone 24/7 and not wake up with a dead battery. Although, people can hack into phones now with bluetooth and steal/change your address book. Scary.
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artlu.net
In my opinion, Bluetooth has been much more plagued by lack of adoption than speed and power consumption. USB was immensily popular before it became fast. It's popularity is what spurred it to become faster. I would love to get a bluetooth phone or PDA, or wireless keyboard or wireless mouse to connect with the internal bluetooth in my powerbook, but options are limited, which is driving costs way up. We need more options, and we need costs to be driven down. Thats not going to happen until more manufacturers adopt it.
A friend of mine mentioned to me the other day that some phone companies (like sprint) are being very cautious about offering bluetooth support in their phones because bluetooth makes it so easy to share the internet connection on the phones. A lot of the phone companies (like sprint) are offering unlimited internet plans, and bluetooth phones would lead to a lot of abuse with people using the connections for their laptops instead of their cellphones. Anyway, it is one of the reasons that bluetooth adoption isn't taking off as fast as it should.
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
How is this modded insightful? It should be rated ignorant or uninformed if there was one.
You wouldn't "see" any bluetooth devices on your computer because it's not meant to broadcast to everyone far away. You want everyone walking by with a laptop or bluetooth pda to pickup and connect to your cell phone or laptop?
Bluetooth is not supposed to compete with Wifi and won't. WiFi is for IP networks, Bluetooth is just a wireless connection for peripherals.
It would be like comparing Wireless USB to Wi-Fi, they have different uses. Just because they are both wireless doesn't mean they should compete. It's like saying my remote control for my tv is slower than my wireless network so it's going to die off soon.
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.
Bluetooth group preps 2.1Mbps spec By Tony Smith Published Thursday 10th June 2004 10:38 GMT Bluetooth communications are set to get rather faster with a new version of the specification that takes its data throughput 2.1Mbps in the offing. The new version, Bluetooth Enhanced Data Rate (EDR), is offered as a "prototype specification" by the Bluetooth Special Interest Group (SIG). The technology increases data transmission by compressing more data into each packet rather than by increasing the rate at which packets are sent. Today's devices support speeds of up to 712Kbps. Bluetooth EDR will use existing Bluetooth 1.2 technology for connecting devices and sending data, so older devices will still be able to communicate with machines supporting EDR. The SIG says EDR will consume less power than the current version - it reckons EDR devices will eke out battery power for twice as long as Bluetooth units do today. And the new specification also provides improved facilities to use several functions or devices simultaneously, due to more available bandwidth. The Bluetooth SIG expects the EDR specification to be finalised this coming Autumn. Products based on the specification are set to ship some time in 2005. The SIG needs to come up with improved versions of the spec if it's to prevent Bluetooth becoming overshadowed by UWB-based technologies such as the 480Mbps Wireless USB. WUSB's first spec isn't due until the end of the year, and even if it's implemented quickly, Bluetooth has a considerable lead in terms of the number of devices that support it.
There's so much "crap" out there about "bluetooth is dead, long live 802.11", or "everything will be 802.11" or "elvis works at my local 711".
They are complimentary, remember that Bluetooth was designed _specifically_ as (a) single chip solution, (b) low power, low cost, low size, (c) a short range point to point data replacement.
Until I see true single-chip 802.11 devices that meet these criteria, there's still a space for Bluetooth.
After all, you don't buy "dishwasher power" for your "washing machine".
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.
It really shouldn't be that well known, because it's not true.
Source: Nintendo. Emphasis: mine.
Dear lord, what's next? A bad review of his beloved Ferrari Laptiop? SCO may loose in court?
My reality is crumbling ... dear god make this madness stop!