Bluetooth Everywhere

Now, here’s something to get excited about. Last week, the Bluetooth SIG made an announcement about the next generation of Bluetooth technology. It’s probably WON’T be named Bluetooth 2.2, and it probably WILL be named Bluetooth 3.0. So why are the details so sketchy at this point? My guess is that they’re going to wait to make the big announcement at the CES show in January 2009. But anyway, here’s what we know:

• Bluetooth 10x will be the name of the spec that will utilize WLAN (802.11) radio technology
• Bluetooth 100x will be the name of the spec that will utilize UWB (Ultra Wide Band) radio technology

Since the radio technology for WLAN is widely available and ubiquitous, it makes sense that the 10x spec (and devices that implement the spec) will come out first. UWB is a tougher nut to crack, and I won’t expect to see any devices that use that technology until 2010 or 2011.

Of course, we have to wait until CES to see if any device manufacturers have done anything promising with UWB or Wireless USB.

This entry was posted on Sunday, December 14th, 2008 at 17:07 and is filed under Bluetooth 3.0. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.