Staccato Proclaims UWB Technology Isn't Dead

MojoKid writes "Earlier this month, Ultra-Wideband mainstay TZero closed its doors, leaving the once hopeful format in limbo. One of the few UWB supporters still hanging around is Staccato Communications, and not surprisingly, its CEO is stepping up to address the overall situation and assure the general public that the wireless format it supports is far from dead. In a long-winded note from the desk of Marty Colombatto, he frankly states that 'to conclude that "UWB is dead" is a gross misinterpretation of recent events and ignores the lessons of relevant history.' Potentially the most interesting tidbit is that UWB is supposedly getting a 'makeover' this year. Marty even goes so far as to say that new developments in 2009 are sure to breathe new life into the technology.'" Update 2/22 at 17:41 by SS: Reader coldmist pointed out a related Ars Technica piece looking into the state of wireless HD video, which contains some interesting information about UWB.

Comments

UWB for Video

[coldmist]

Ars Technica recently had a great writeup on the state of wireless video, which included a lot of info on UWB.

It's worth a read.

UWB Was Destined To Die

[loose electron]

I designed an UWB receiver for one of the UWB startups 3-4 years back. UWB has a few problems from the start that make it a POS --

1. The wideband nature of the beast and the fact that it uses a roughly 250MHz wide channel. (Its OFDM modulation on a a multichannel structure with 200+ parallel channels) - When You get to the practical nature of the beast, the receiver structures require huge huge amounts of power. UWB's radiated at the antenna power is low, but the amount of juice sucked in to power the beast is huge.

2. Due to (1) its never going to be battery powered. Power cord is a must have. So much for "wireless" duh....

The UWB proponents tried to sell UWB as a way to kill off the interconnect cords for TV-DVR-DVD-BlewRay ;) systems. Well, you still got to power plug them so whats the big deal??? Besides, most of that stuff is a "plug once and forget" thing, so its really not that big a deal.