Bluetooth SIG chooses sides for UWB-based Bluetooth successor

The Bluetooth Special Interest Group, in search of a standard for its next version of Bluetooth, had already expressed its intention to pick between the quarreling UWB factions: WiMedia Alliance and the UWB Forum. Looks like WiMedia ended up fitting the bill best for bringing high speeds to Bluetooth connections, and it's expected that most UWB manufacturers will follow suit. Now the respective tech teams just need to sit down and hammer out the spec, which Bluetooth SIG estimates will take about a year, with prototype chips becoming available around Q2 2007. There are some distinct technological hurdles that must be jumped to get the 480mbps UWB interoperable with the 2.1mbps Bluetooth connections, including the fact that UWB operates in the unlicensed spectrum above 6GHz, while Bluetooth hangs out at 2.4GHz. Even with those problems in front of them, Bluetooth SIG is confident that UWB fits the low power consumption requirements of Bluetooth, and, of course, it's hard to scoff at the promised data rates.

[Via Phone Scoop]

[dan @ Mar 28th 2006 6:29PM]

they need to perfect regular bluetooth before trying something new. i have bt stereo headphones, and none of my devices support A2DP, or AVRCP. let the devices catch up before we blaze a new standard just for the hell of it...

[JCA @ Mar 28th 2006 6:48PM]

Dan, the lack of support for a particular blutooth stack doesn't imply that the product is "imperfect". It could be that your device(s) are old and came out before the newer standard. It could be that the technical development hurdles were too much for the device manuafacturer. It could be that dev costs were too high....or it could be that they crippled the functionality on purpose.

[Lou @ Mar 28th 2006 6:50PM]

I agree. This technology is just getting a toe-hold and they want to move on?
I was just thinking that my PDA should link up to my car stereo like the BT headphones. (I listen to audiobooks)
BLUETOOTH SHOULD BE EVERYWHERE!!!!

[NeoteriX @ Mar 28th 2006 7:16PM]

Come on guys, there will be plenty of time for the current implementation of Bluetooth to mature before the next one hits.

By "prototype chips becoming available around Q2 2007", what they really mean to say is "the standard will be finalized by mid-2007, and then prototype chips will be available around late 2008... and then the first generation stuff will hit the shelves around 2009... and it will finally be popular around 2010.

Plenty of time! :)

[Pacey @ Mar 29th 2006 9:08AM]

Also, don't forget that the world doesnt revolve aroundthe US anymore technologically. Just because we (as in the general US population) havn't been quick to adopt bluetooth technology, the rest of the world has. Just because you just got bluetooth doesn't mean the standard doesn't need updating, it just means you're on the tail end of the "adopters bell curve"