Bluetooth, the short-range wireless technology, was hyped as the
next big thing last year. It promised then to revolutionise the way
we work and play. Today, the promise remains just that - a
promise.
But enthusiasts say the technology's time has come and urge
companies to prepare for take-off. Pessimists caution it will take
at least another two or three years, if it happens at all. So what
exactly is Bluetooth and why has it caused so much excitement?
Bluetooth is an open standard for radio frequency (RF) wireless
communication between devices. At the most elementary level, it
eliminates wires and cables between both stationary and mobile
devices, as do other wireless technologies, such as the IEEE
802.11, a well-known global standard that also uses radio
waves.
Bluetooth also supports both data and voice communication, giving
it the versatility required of today's communication
technologies.
But the difference between Bluetooth and IEEE 802.11 and its ilk,
is that Bluetooth is a connection between devices whereas IEEE
802.11 is a local area network (LAN) connection. This means that in
a Bluetooth set up, a hub or base station can be eliminated.
Doing away with the base station is a big selling point, explained
Lim Yew Seng, general manager of operations at Sunderland
Technologies, a local company that provides wireless connectivity
solutions.
An example explains it best: with Bluetooth, a PC, which is a
device, can be connected directly to a printer, which is another
device, without needing a server or hub between them. This means a
saving of at least a few thousand dollars in hardware costs
alone.
In addition, it means a Bluetooth-enabled laptop can be linked up
to any Bluetooth-enabled printer without worrying about
compatibility and settings.
The device-to-device capability of Bluetooth also allows for what
has been dubbed "personal area network" or PAN. This is an ad hoc
network within the range of a Bluetooth device. It means that all
Bluetooth-enabled devices within reach - 10m in the case of a
device or 100m in the case of a base station - will be hooked
up.
The maximum number of devices that can be linked together in such a
pico net is eight, unless one of the devices of the first pico net
is also linked to another pico net. In such a case, the devices in
the first network can connect to the second and so on in a bigger
scatter net, explained Lim.
Within the pico or scatter net, one Bluetooth-enabled phone can
talk to another as a walkie-talkie, that is, without using the
telecommunications connections and thereby not paying their
charges.
Due to the PAN and a service discovery profile, you can also
synchronise all your devices or control them effortlessly. Imagine
entering your office and immediately your Bluetooth-enabled
personal digital assistant (PDA) automatically updates the address
list and calendar in your Bluetooth-enabled desktop PC or vice
versa.
Or, when you go home, the same PDA can switch on your
Bluetooth-enabled air conditioner if the temperature is above what
you have specified.
Restaurants too can exploit this capability to send out an
announcement of its nearby presence to all Bluetooth-enabled PDAs
and mobile phones in the vicinity, suggested Lim.
It is potential applications like this that have caused the buzz
about Bluetooth. "Bluetooth on its own is nothing. It is the
applications that make it look like something new," said Jamshaid
Akbar, chief executive officer of GoMobile.
His company is a product developer that will take up an idea and
turn it into a commercially feasible product for its clients in six
to 12 weeks. "We will demo the concept, build a prototype and
propose the commercialisation strategy. In the six to 12 weeks, we
will build the hardware, the operating software and the application
software," said Akbar.
A firm believer in the future of Bluetooth, he thinks that small,
innovative companies are thriving on Bluetooth and the results of
their work will soon come to light.
His own company is working on a couple of Bluetooth projects. He is
not able to reveal who his clients are but is willing to describe
what the applications will do.
One is a Bluetooth headphone that connects to a basic browser and
from there to an appliance such as a stereo set. From one
headphone, it would be possible to configure and stream the same
music to other headsets, said Akbar.
A second application is for the hospital environment. It is to
place a Bluetooth connection on a hospital bed so that information
from all the machines monitoring the patient in the bed can be
transmitted to screens in a control room. In this way, the doctor
or nurse can monitor the patient constantly.
Another application, could be to use Bluetooth phones to access the
Internet to use cheap Voice-over-Internet-protocol (VOIP) instead
of the more expensive normal public switched telephone networks.
There is a company here that is working on a Bluetooth peripheral
for networks, said Lim.
Such applications are still in the pipeline but Ericsson, one of
the initiators of Bluetooth, already has a product in the market.
It is a compact and lightweight headset that allows users to answer
their Bluetooth-enabled telephone by simply pressing a button on
the headset.
"The demand for a system that can easily connect devices for the
transfer of data and voice over short distances without cables has
grown. Bluetooth wireless technology fills this important
communication need and the Ericsson Bluetooth headset is one of the
first few successful applications," said Jack Tan, product and
services manager, for Ericsson, Consumer Products.
He pointed to the following prediction: "In a forecast made by
Cahners In-Stat Group last July, the product availability over the
next few years was defined in three waves.
"The first wave is supposed to occur around 2000 and 2001. It is
happening with products such as Ericsson's Bluetooth headset,
Toshiba's and IBM's Bluetooth PC Cards that are already
commercially deployed. Other products include high-end mobile
phones and notebook PCs, cordless phones, handheld PCs, PDAs and
adapters for mobile phones.
"The second wave will in many respects overlap with the first. What
we will see are PCs with Bluetooth circuitry on the motherboard,
printers, fax machines, digital cameras and products for industry
and medicine.
"Last but not least, the third wave will include low-cost mobile
phones, lower-cost portable devices and desktop PCs," he
said.
Singapore is right there in the thick of propagating Bluetooth.
Avnet, a worldwide distributor of electronic components from the US
has set up its RF Design Services Lab in Singapore. With the lab,
Avnet will be able to provide a suite of value-added design and
technical services for Bluetooth products.
A new wireless research centre that is being set up also expects to
work on Bluetooth applications. Wireless Intellect Labs, a joint
venture by mobile operator M1 and infrastructure developer
EdgeMatrix, envisages its early projects to include Bluetooth as it
works on technologies for mobile commerce and wireless broadband
solutions.
Sunderland Technologies, a Singapore company, has launched a suite
of Bluetooth peripherals and accessories. Besides the commonplace
Bluetooth PC card for laptops, it offers a printer adapter, which
can be used for any printer, a universal serial bus (USB) adapter
for PCs and other USB host-enabled devices and a compact flash card
for compact flash host-enabled devices such as PDAs. It also has an
adapter for the Palm V handheld called the Waveclip.
Lim is upbeat about the company's Bluetooth products, saying that
they have already signed an order for 10,000 Waveclips. They are
still in negotiation for other products.
"We really believe in Bluetooth. It is going to be part of daily
life," said Lim.
The reason for that, explained Akbar, is that Bluetooth will be
cheap and therefore will be embedded in every device. As more
applications are developed around the Bluetooth networks and as the
devices become ubiquitous, the adoption rate will spiral.
This is where detractors beg to differ.
They say that for Bluetooth to become widely used, companies that
make chips for the technology must reduce the cost of their
products to a level that's reasonable for makers of mass-market
electronics products. At the same time, until those gadget makers
start to order Bluetooth chips in high volume, prices will remain
high. The catch-22 situation could keep Bluetooth on the back
burner until 2003 or even 2004, according to some analysts. "At its
current cost, Bluetooth is not going to work its way into the mass
markets," said Ben Thompson, a senior analyst at Gartner
Group.
The ideal price point for the set of components needed to bring
Bluetooth capabilities to a product - typically a processor, radio
transmitter, antenna and flash memory - is around $5, Thompson
said. Most Bluetooth chip sets on the market today start at $10 to
$15 - a substantial difference for device makers that produce
low-margin goods in high volumes.
"Bluetooth is one of the most over-hyped technologies of the
century," added Phillip Redman, another research analyst at
Gartner.
Adding to the deflation, the desktop division of Microsoft has
temporarily withdrawn support for Bluetooth short-range wireless
devices from the next version of its Windows operating system, XP.
The company's Pocket PC division continues to embrace the
technology, although it expects a slow roll-out.
The ambivalence at Microsoft can be seen as reflecting the
realities of Bluetooth. "Bluetooth is real, but I don't think [the
roll-out] will be smooth sailing," said Douglas Dedo, group product
manager in Microsoft's Mobile Devices Division.