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Apr. 21, 2010

At its annual All Hands Meeting yesterday, the Bluetooth SIG (Special Interest Group) released more data on its forthcoming Bluetooth Core Specification Version 4.0.

One of its biggest feature is low energy consumption. Previous versions of Bluetooth would consume more battery power, requiring more frequent charges between uses.

How much less power the 4.0 devices will use compared with existing devices depends on the use case. The target products are meant to be ones that report small amounts of data every once in a while, as opposed to a headset that needs an ongoing connection during a phone call.

Overall, Bluetooth designers will first create interoperable prototypes built on the new version of the technology and plan to thoroughly test them before anything gets released to the commercial market.

Some initial products may still be introduced in the market in August or September, but most of them will come in the 2011 timeframe and beyond.

That should help Bluetooth's further expansion into markets like M-Health, sports and fitness, security and home entertainment where button-cell batteries proliferate.

Mike Foley, executive director of the Bluetooth SIG says "I think we're going to see an explosion of new products, ticking off items like pedometers, heart rate monitors, watches and household sensors of all types."

One of the first applications will be related to proximity devices because it's fairly simple – such as apps that will automatically lock or unlock a PC depending on the situation or beep a person if a mobile phone or laptop moves within a certain range.

A lot of the "ooomph" is in how a device is set to wake up and send information quickly, then power down. In the area of smart energy, competing short-range technologies like ZigBee are gaining traction.

Bluetooth version 4.0 will also compete with some proprietary technologies as well. "One of the key strengths Bluetooth brings is a standardized solution," Foley added.

Bluetooth has been working on Version 4 since November 2007. It originally started as a project within Nokia called Wibree that was contributed to the SIG.

According to the Bluetooth SIG, about 32 percent of the expected attendees were unable to make it to this week's event in Seattle, because of the air travel problems related to the active volcano in Iceland since last week.

Under normal conditions, conference organizers would have expected about 260 or 310 attendees.

The Bluetooth Special Interest Group is a privately held, not-for-profit trade association founded in September 1998. The Bluetooth SIG itself does not make, manufacture or sell Bluetooth enabled products.

The SIG member companies are leaders in the telecommunications, computing, automotive, music, apparel, industrial automation and network industries.

SIG members drive development of Bluetooth wireless technology, and implement and market the technology in their products. The main tasks for the Bluetooth SIG are to publish Bluetooth specifications, administer the qualification program, protect the Bluetooth trademarks and evangelize Bluetooth wireless technology.

The Bluetooth SIG global headquarters are in Kirkland, Washington, and has local offices in Hong Kong, Beijing, Seoul, Tokyo, Taiwan and Malmo, Sweden.

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Source: The Bluetooth SIG.