Nokia's Wibree Takes on Bluetooth

narramissic writes "Nokia has developed a new, short-range wireless technology, called Wibree, that it says is a lot more power efficient than Bluetooth, which means it could be used in smaller and less costly devices. It can also use the same radio and antenna components as Bluetooth, helping keep costs down further. Wibree could compete with Bluetooth in the workplace as a way to link keyboards and other peripherals to computers. But it could also have more interesting applications for consumers, in devices such as wrist watches, toys and sports equipment." What does this say about Bluetooth, considering Nokia is a member of the Bluetooth Promoters group?

Comments

Stupid name kills technology

[BadAnalogyGuy]

Sounds like they are trying to succeed in a non-existant market. The actual applications of Bluetooth are few and far between. The 'wireless' office never amounted to much and you know you look like an idiot with that earpiece and talking to yourself at Starbucks.

So what is a company to do? How about rebrand the technology with a worse name than it originally had? That's the ticket!

Too many technologies

[ocdude]

While it's always cool to hear about new tech coming out, it makes me crazy when I hear about a new tech that is going to replace an "older" tech when the "older" tech hasn't even been around for too long. So, right now, I don't even own any bluetooth things. If this new Wibree thing starts to proliferate as much as bluetooth, does that mean that now I will have to monitor everything I buy to make sure that it works with my particular hardware? IE will I have to make sure my new laptop has both bluetooth (for "legacy devices) and wibree for whatever nokia throws at us?

The same can be said about just about any new tech that is to replace and not be compatible with old tech. USB, IMHO, did it right. USB2.0 is backwards compatible with USB1.1

Doesn't say much

[AlastairMurray]

From the summary:

"What does this say about Bluetooth, considering Nokia is a member of the Bluetooth Promoters group?"

It says that Bluetooth is years old and now some that is (possibly) better has come along, nothing more.

I've got Bluetooth on my phone, and never use it.

[PHAEDRU5]

I have a Nokia phone, and it has Bluetooth.

When I bought the phone, I also bought a Bluetooth headset. I gave up on the Bluetooth pretty quickly: The headset would only run for about five hours before needing to be recharged, and the phone's standby time was cut down massively.

This isn't a complaint about Bluetooth as such. It's more that current devices, as delivered, don't provide long-enough standby time, never mind talk time, when Bluetooth is enabled.