Texas Instruments is pretty chuffed with itself right about now, as it's prepping to demonstrate a swell-sounding new system-on-chip that takes
Bluetooth connectivity to the
extreme reaches of low energy consumption. About to be shown off in Munich tomorrow, the new CC2540 takes up a measly 6mm-squared of real estate, and is said to be able to operate for more than a year on a single button cell battery. With the reduced physical size and embedded Flash memory, this should be easier to install and update as necessary too. Considering the battery-draining ways of current Bluetooth tech, such claims sound preposterously awesome, but we'll keep our giddy enthusiasm in check until early next year when samples will begin rolling out. For now, you can check out the older video below 'splaining the prospective benefits in more detail.
Read - Texas Instruments press release
Read - Bluetooth low energy webpage
Read - Video explanation of Bluetooth low energy
posted Oct 19th 2009 7:18AM
I thought bluetooth was about to become obsolete with he introduction of the new WiFI sharing protocol. I am really looking forward toward the introduction of that. On the other hand, if this could be incorporated into cellphones ... but yet I think I have used my bluetooth service probably 2 times.
faster blue-tooth please, with long range.
No. The whole point of BT is the short range.. For long range use WiFi (especially the soon-to-come WiFi Direct, it will be good)
I agree it needs to be faster though. A lot faster.
I thought bluetooth died after the future-Wifi announcement, but they survived after all
who cares for bluetooth, they had their chances but missed the big bang now its time for future-wifi.. and why hell on earth do this things always try to become good when a new competitor appears on the horizon?
Screw low power. Make it work better. Stop making nerds worry about what drivers their oem bought for the chipset. I still can't connect to A2DP on one laptop while a crappier laptop can.
It's true. Depending on what BT stack you're stuck with, you won't have the appropriate profiles. Forgot about support for older laptops too! Had to find a /patched/ version of the latest stack.
Bluetooth, from an RF perspective is terrible too. It just vomits all over the 2.4Ghz spectrum, unlike 802.11b/g/n which is better behaved.
Yes, I don't care about the battery just make it stronger, more data and less crushes and interference.
Low power bluetooth? Do they mean Zigbee protocol here?
It's Nokia's Wibree
By the time this new BT comes around, WiFi Direct would've taken over the market. Even 802.11b is faster than BT and everything that has WiFi nowadays starts at 802.11g at least. I can see car and car stereo makers incorporating WiFi Direct technology and allow consumers to stream media directly from their WiFi enabled PMPs/phones without drops and hiccups while allowing static-free calling at the same time. Unless BT manages to dramatically increase bandwidth and eliminate interference (while making the pairing idiot-proof), it won't stand a chance.
Good. BT drains my Pre.
"6 mm-squared"
Perhaps you mean 6 square millimeters? Because 6 mm-squared is 36 square millimeters, and that would be a silly way of putting things, don't you think?
The guy in the video talks about using this tech only for transmission of small amounts of data - like your phone telling your watch somebody is calling you or a pacemaker sending messages and such.
Doesn't seem like it's application will be an hour long phone call or transferring movie files form a computer to a cell phone.