Shipment of Bluetooth enabled equipments – IMS Research, 2007 and why you should revisit proximity marketing

 

Estimates of Bluetooth’s market size are large and increasing. Currently the market is around 800 million units annually, with some 63% of that being handset-related. Both the handset market and Bluetooth penetration of it are growing, with expectations that by 2011 over 70% of all handsets will be Bluetooth-enabled. However, this is not the only way the market is growing. In 2005 the anticipated market size for 2009 or so was approximately 1 billion units, but during the course of 2006 and 2007 these estimates have been increased dramatically to more than 1.2 billion as Bluetooth finds new applications. There is no doubt that device manufacturers will look to add Bluetooth to more and more devices because of the network benefits of a single short-range connectivity standard 

New Flavours of Bluetooth

How is Bluetooth developing?

Bluetooth is developing further in two different directions, the first, known as High Speed Bluetooth, being the higher-bandwidth but lower-power-per-bit Bluetooth over UWB or Bluetooth over 802.11. Even if the BT SIG announced in March 2006 that the UWB technology will be used for the high speed channel, the Bluetooth SIG just unveiled that 802.11 will be given higher priority, UWB being used in a second. High Speed Bluetooth enables a new range of applications such as storage, high-speed file transfer, printing, synchronization, fast music/video download and streaming. At first sight, none of these applications – which are all, in theory, very simple data transfer tasks – requires Bluetooth. They could be handled by other wireless technologies such as WiFi, or Certified Wireless USB (which is also based on UWB).

However, as these tasks are quite different to each other, Bluetooth offers an ideal means of combining them in a single, unified and problem-free way. By porting Bluetooth on top of UWB or 802.11, most of the anticipated uses of all the existing Bluetooth profiles are covered. At the same time, Bluetooth provides a framework that allows other uses, such as multimedia, to be created in a non-proprietary fashion, thanks to the definition of new profiles. In addition, Bluetooth handles the security and device registration issues thanks to the Secured Simple Pairing feature added in the newly released Bluetooth 2.1+EDR specifications. Furthermore, the power consumption is more fully optimized in High Speed Bluetooth than in Certified Wireless USB or WiFi, through the use of the legacy Bluetooth part for control signaling and low power modes. Bluetooth therefore allows for a swifter and more reliable implementation than would be possible using other wireless standards.

 

Initial pilot High Speed Bluetooth implementations can be expected during 2008 and, assuming take up rates similar to previous versions of the Bluetooth standard, widespread adoption in consumer products can be expected in 2010/2011. Because of its large bandwidth, Bluetooth over UWB is likely to be a critical part of future home entertainment and home networking systems. The bandwidth will permit, for example, the driving of high definition video / TV streams from handsets, as well as the ability to support data-intensive jobs such as computer backup and file sharing. For single wireless technology companies, such as Wireless USB chipset vendors and WLAN chipset vendors, High Speed Bluetooth is highly attractive. These vendors may expect to leverage High Speed Bluetooth as a way to enter the huge Bluetooth market by providing higher bandwidth alternatives to traditional Bluetooth applications. Moreover, these vendors are able to concentrate on their core expertise in UWB or WLAN, while integrating third party Bluetooth IP without diverting too many resources

 

The second direction that Bluetooth development is taking is the extremely low power, low data rate market. “Wibree”, a standard initially developed by Nokia and later adopted by the BT SIG as Ultra Low Power (ULP) Bluetooth, is designed to permit the interoperability of devices such as wireless keyboards, mice, remote controllers, wireless sensors, remote displays and medical devices. In dual-mode implementation devices such as cellphones or laptops, ULP Bluetooth has the benefit that it can reuse most of the existing Bluetooth functionality, incurring only minimal cost increase.

Bluetooth and a helping hand for disabled

Bluetooth technology is making an appearance in virtually every area of the ever-growing assistive technology market.

Bluetooth SIG member Otto Bock uses the wireless technology to create artificial limbs that communicate with each other to enable a double-amputee to walk with a more natural gait.

The hearing impaired can also experience benefits with Bluetooth enabled hearing aids and hearing devices. Several manufacturers, including Oticon, Starkey and Phonak, offer devices that allow users to pair Bluetooth enabled mobile phones or other audio “gateway” devices to their hearing aids to enhance their ability to hear conversations or pick up signals from remote microphones.

For people with visual impairments, systems that use a combination of GPS receivers, mobile phones and Bluetooth wireless relays can transmit information about shops and other points of interest, creating a mobile audio guide that eases everyday navigation.

Assistive technology companies are applying Bluetooth technology in innovative ways, enabling people with disabilities to use assistive devices with more flexibility than ever before.

Bluetooth low energy technology promises to deliver even more solutions that can lend a helping hand to people for whom traditional wired technology is out of reach.