Bluetooth: Next Big Wave in Electronics?
In the white-hot quest for the next big thing in personal electronics, the word on the lips of technology executives these days is “Bluetooth.”
This soon-to-be-introduced wireless technology uses simple shortwave radio links to allow devices such as laptop computers, cell phones, personal digital assistants such as Palm, cameras and printers to communicate with one another over short distances.
As all these devices have surged in popularity, the tangled webs of wires and cables around desks have become an increasing frustration for consumers and manufacturers. Bluetooth has the potential to make most of those wires disappear, and with its promise of low-cost and nearly universal compatibility, big-name consumer electronics and chip makers are clambering aboard.
With Bluetooth radio connections, individuals will be able to form their own personal networks, using as many as eight electronic devices within about 33 feet of one another to exchange schedules and address book information, compete at video games, print documents, trade business cards or even access the Internet without plugging in.
Industry giants such as Nokia Corp., Intel Corp., Qualcomm Inc., Microsoft Corp., Ericsson Mobile Communications, Motorola Inc., IBM Corp. and Toshiba Corp. are all readying Bluetooth devices.
One of the first gadgets is a wireless headset by Ericsson that links to a cell phone, expected to be ready for the holiday shopping season. The headset has a Bluetooth chip, so it can communicate with an Ericsson cell phone, enabling users to talk hands-free while driving or to walk around the kitchen and slice a pizza while staying in touch.
The other early products will be add-ons for existing devices, such as Bluetooth attachments that can establish radio connections to computers, hand-held data assistants and cell phones.
Motorola, Intel and IBM will soon offer PC cards and port accessories so that old laptops, printers and hand-held data assistants can have a new Bluetooth link, enabling them to share files without plugging in. The IBM PC card, expected by October, will cost under $200, the company said.
“Early Bluetooth products are more expensive. They will come down in price substantially over time,” said Howard Dulany, marketing manager for wireless products at IBM.
IBM and Toshiba also plan to offer Bluetooth in upcoming computer models. Some of IBM’s ThinkPad laptop computers will come with built-in Bluetooth technology by early next year.
Already more than 1,600 companies are developing devices and applications for Bluetooth, which was named for 10th century Danish King Harald Bluetooth, best known for uniting Denmark with Norway.
The Bluetooth communications standard is being promoted by a consortium of firms, including Ericsson, Nokia, Intel, Toshiba and IBM. To encourage its widespread adoption, it is available free to any company that wants to try to develop products or software that utilize it. And because Bluetooth operates in an unregulated part of the radio spectrum, there are virtually no government authorities to reckon with.
As with most new technologies, the value of Bluetooth will increase as it becomes more widely used. By 2005, about 1.4 billion Bluetooth products will be shipped, predicts market research firm Cahners In-Stat Group.
“It’s a great concept, and everyone in the wireless industry is waiting . . . to find it in commercial products,” said Alan Reiter of consulting firm Wireless Internet & Mobile Computing in Chevy Chase, Md. “But technologists are often overly optimistic about how fast they can create products. If you want inter-operability, you have to get everyone in the room to agree” to use it.
Southland Firms Buy Into Technology
Still, the potential demand for Bluetooth devices has spurred Southern California companies to pay top dollar for entree into the Bluetooth market.
Chip maker Conexant Systems Inc. of Newport Beach paid about $117 million in April for Bluetooth developer Philsar Semiconductor Inc. of Ontario, Canada. And rival Broadcom Corp. quickly followed suit. In May and June, the Irvine maker of high-speed communications chips paid more than $1 billion for two companies, Pivotal Technologies Corp. of Pasadena and Innovent Systems Inc. of El Segundo, which develop Bluetooth semiconductors and software.
“Bluetooth cuts across a number of different market segments that are going to be increasingly important to people,” said Broadcom Chief Executive Henry Nicholas III. “We see it as an extremely important means of distributing broadband throughout the home.”
After Broadcom’s second deal was announced, Nicholas boasted that Broadcom now had the largest engineering work force dedicated to Bluetooth in the world, nearly 100 people in all.
But it’s a tiny British start-up with 15 engineers, Cambridge Silicon Radio, that analysts say has captured the lead in bringing the simplest, low-cost Bluetooth chip to market. The company, in which Intel is an investor, is the first to offer Bluetooth on a single silicon chip, although Broadcom says it is fast on its way to delivering a similar solution.
Conexant, on the other hand, is dealing in Bluetooth chips that use more expensive technology but consume less power--an important concern in battery-operated devices that can quickly run out of juice.
Bluetooth enthusiasts envision within a few years that the technology will be so commonplace that consumers could walk their laptop by an Internet terminal at the airport and beam their e-mail to the office between flights. Or aim their Palm or mobile phone at a vending machine and charge a soda to a credit card without fishing for cash; flirt with someone at the grocery store by launching a telephone number straight into his or her cell phone; shoot photos with a Bluetooth-enabled digital camera and e-mail the pictures directly to their grandma via a laptop. Or drive a car on any toll road in the country, and with a Bluetooth chip embedded in the car, there will be no need to stop to pay tolls; the bill will simply show up on a credit card statement.
As for security concerns, different levels of protection will be available for Bluetooth communications, from simple passwords to sophisticated encryption software. Each Bluetooth device will have a unique address, so material won’t be sent inadvertently to the wrong recipient. And Bluetooth signals change frequency 1,600 times a second, making them difficult to intercept.
Current Bluetooth applications are capable of moving data at about 723 kilobits per second, more than 10 times the speed of the fastest telephone modem but not as fast as digital subscriber lines and high-speed cable modems. Those speeds are expected to improve over time.
Analysts Say Cost Is Key
Of course, other wireless technologies are already on the market, and some are able to carry considerably more data over much greater distances than 33 feet.
But the key to Bluetooth, analysts say, will be its low cost. Within the next few years, Bluetooth chips are expected to wholesale for $5 a piece, which will make the technology feasible for a wide range of applications. In these early days, though, the chips are going for more than twice that price.
Yet even as companies scramble to take a bite out of this emerging market, some experts believe that the industry’s appetite for Bluetooth is overblown.
“The technology can’t be everything it’s hyped up to be. The expectations are all out of proportion,” said Thomas Lee, an engineering professor at Stanford University who specializes in wireless technology.
Not until prices are low enough that people start putting the technology into “foolish things” will its promise be realized--somewhere between 50 cents and a dollar a chip, Lee said.
Another possible hang-up is the potential for wireless mischief that Bluetooth presents. Lee says he’s not so worried that personal information will be stolen; that can be safeguarded with software and encryption technologies. The problem, he says, is that a high school tech geek will be able to figure out how to jam all the Bluetooth signals within range, bringing the wireless love-in to a frustrating halt.
“Wireless links are much more susceptible to that kind of mischief” than the wired world, Lee said.
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UNWIRED in a wired world
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The up-and-coming wireless technology Bluetooth uses shortwave radio to link electronic devices usually connected by wires. More than 1,600 technology companies--including nearly all of the industry giants--have committed to the low-cost, universal Bluetooth standard. The first devices are expected to be on the market by the end of the year.
How the technology will change computing and telecommunications:
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WHAT IS BLUETOOTH?
A group of high-tech companies has agreed to use Bluetooth, a chip technology that allows devices such as cell phones, laptop computers and personal digital assistants, to communicate over a single radio frequency.
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HOW FAST IS IT?
Compared to other communication speeds:
