High-speed Bluetooth and WiFi’s Helping Hand

Bluetooth was seen to engage in a sweeping marital affair in the article Bluetooth: Long Live the King, posted on HubPages recently – a move which witnessed the merger of Ultra-wideband (UWB) and Wibree (formerly Nokia). However, since the marriage of the happy couples there has been a huge expectation for high-speed Bluetooth to be delivered. Moreover, it has been several years since UWB’s merger, but where is it?

Following a strategic move that would ensure Bluetooth’s longevity within the short-range wireless arena, the Special Interest Group or SIG (the industry group that assures Bluetooth’s future) have been plodding along with a number of revisions that will dawn Bluetooth’s renewed success. But, after several years the eagerly rumoured v3.0 specification integrating Ultra-wideband’s high data rate seems to be somewhat elusive. In fact, the high-speed Bluetooth solution seems to be forever on the horizon.

What’s more the Bluetooth SIG have become a little frustrated with the pace of development and speculatively some outstanding issues exist with UWB, which may have plagued that all important new release. As such, the SIG have been seeking a back-up plan as they can’t be seen to stagnate in what is a rapidly changing industry.

Most curiously, the Bluetooth SIG have looked at WiFi, as a mechanism to offer high-speed connectivity – perhaps, in the short-term, whilst UWB overcomes its initial shortcomings? Bluetooth, with its current version 2.1 +Enhanced Data Rate (EDR) musters up a modest 3Mb/s, which, for most applications, should suffice. Typically, consumers can transfer small amounts of information between their PCs and cellular phones, for example.

However, the Bluetooth SIG wants to target an application space where consumers can utilise large data rates for more data hungry applications, such as that demanded by video/audio-centric applications. When you compare the alleged data rate offered by UWB, boasting an impressive 400Mb/s in first generation products the allure for the SIG seems to be somewhat quantifiable. Moreover, it’s purported that the second generation of UWB technology will deliver an incredible 1Gb/s.

The Bluetooth SIG doesn’t seem to be having much success, as earlier this year, it struggled with a name for its new low energy offering. As far back as June 2007 the SIG announced the integration of Wibree, as a low energy and short-range solution within its new Specification of the Bluetooth System: Core (a guide for developers and manufacturers in how to develop Bluetooth products) but, alas, a new specification also remains elusive.

Nevertheless, the Bluetooth SIG seem to be pulling every card out of their sleeve to remain on top and, of course, in their new strategic move to utilise WiFi as a mechanism to sustain greater data rates, they seem almost desperate. Inevitably, Bluetooth’s hi-jacking of WiFi does raise the question “Why not just use WiFi instead?”

But for those in the know, WiFi can be overkill. Admittedly, early WiFi products were power hungry and demanded larger form factors to accommodate the often bulky software that was required just to keep them alive. However, following much criticism from the industry, the IEEE, who maintains the future of WiFi, obliged industry expectations and offered more efficient energy saving techniques.

Moreover, in the early days, many technologists argued that Bluetooth and WiFi were competing technologies. How ironic that we now witness the Bluetooth SIG taking a very different stance. What’s more, the Bluetooth SIG is reaching out its hand to WiFi to help jolt the technology into an increasingly popular application sphere.