From bane to boon, the rise of Bluetooth

It wasn?t long ago that I went on a bit of a dream session rant (which you can read here) about how mobile devices could be used to increase your overall quality of health. At the time I brought about the idea of having a WiFi or Bluetooth connected home that would allow you to weigh yourself, have information stored across a network with an application that would then interface to give you a better picture of what your diet should be for the day.

As it turns out, I wasn?t looking nearly as far into the future as what I might have thought at the time. A couple of days after writing that piece, I was contacted by Suke Jawanda of the Bluetooth Special Interest Group (SIG). He wanted to take the chance to talk about the history, the present and the future of the technology. There were some surprising things that I found and now it?s time to pass them on to you.

Most of us don?t think about Bluetooth very often. In the majority of cases, you might have a headset or a set of speakers but there?s a world revolving around Bluetooth and it?s just now getting to the point that we?ll start feeling a bit more like The Jetsons.

Jawanda first delves into the history of the Bluetooth SIG by telling me that it is the company that owns the intellectual property and the brand for Bluetooth. The group itself is comprised of over 14,000 companies including Motorola, Sony-Ericcson Nokia, Microsoft, Lenovo, Toshiba and Intel. Going back a bit in history, the intellectual property was born to Jaap Haartsen and Sven Mattisson who were working for Ericcson at the time. It was then decided to create the Bluetooth company and SIG.

If you remember a few years ago, you could always tell when someone was talking on a Bluetooth headset. The first ratification of the specification didn?t allow for radio frequency hopping, so interference was a near-constant problem until version 1.2 which also brought about the ability to re-transmit packets, by using  a method called Extended Synchronous Connections.

Moving forward, the abilities, reliability and speeds of Bluetooth transfers increased. At this point we?re in the cusp of the release of version 4.0 (slated to be in devices by the holiday season of 2011) which was ratified in late 2010. But even now, on the version 3.0+ standard, we?re seeing devices that have adopted Bluetooth which we might never have expected before.

In fact, Jawanda tells me that there were 1.7 billion Bluetooth-enabled devices shipped in 2010. We?ve come to expect it from our phones and most Apple mobile computing products, but it?s appearing in other places with quite the force as well. 6-7 million of the Bluetooth radios are being shipped in mobile phones, but in 2011, 80% of cars sold in the US will be equipped with the technology. Accessories are the next big market, including headsets, keyboards, mice and other human interaction devices. Also with a strong showing is that healthcare sector, where in 2010 40 million Bluetooth-enabled devices were sold. From stethoscopes manufactured by 3M to tablet PC?s, the healthcare field is adopting Bluetooth like never before.

Jawanda says that this movement into healthcare has been organic because ?it?s just simple and secure?. In fact, he?s bullish on Bluetooth?s ability to continue to change healthcare, but the self-care aspect is going to come heavily into play. With the 4.0 revision, Bluetooth will consume exponentially less power than it has in the past. For users of devices such as personal glucose monitors, this will be a welcome change.

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Source: http://thenextweb.com/industry/2011/06/12/from-bane-to-boon-the-rise-of-bluetooth/

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