Bluetooth at 10

[slitchfield]

Amazingly, at 5pm GMT today, Bluetooth will be exactly 10 years old. I have to admit that, apart from music transfers and the odd Nokia Software Update, I hardly use wires in my computing set up at all. Internet comes from Wi-Fi and 3G and the vast majority of device to device transfers (syncs/installs/GPS connections/etc) happen via Bluetooth. Even small kids know that Bluetooth is the free way to send content between phones. Here's the official birthday link - Congratulations, all!

Read on in the full article.

[andrewgalpin]

Happy Birthday Bluethooth! i have to say i use bluetooth more than most of the other features on my N95 (exculding music text and calls) and i can't wait to see what new technolegy will bring, and the advances in bluetooth we will have in another 10 years.

Yes it's very useful except that I am finding it very hard to get a printer with bluetooth let alone one that accepts formatting from nokia. Ask a retailer and they think bluetoot is only for phones. Anybody got any ideas on this?

[zippiracer]

i think confidential data can be obtained, anonymously, and without the owner's knowledge or consent, from some bluetooth enabled mobile phones

[slitchfield]

Only from a few very old phones with very old firmware. You try that with a modern device 8-)

[krisse]

zippiracer, I think that's true of all secure systems, none of them are actually 100% secure.

The question isn't whether something can be cracked, but how difficult it is, and whether anyone would conceivably bother.

Ahhh, well Steve that's not quite true what you are saying about audio. I do remember a videoclip where you showed of your A2DP bluetooth gateway from Nokia!

Bluetooth was definitely a step up from the old IR connections. Try sending data on the metro to someone via IR! I think the best bluetooth brought was the multi-pair able wireless headset. One headset to connect for calling to the home pc, the mobile phone, the work pc and trough A2DP the stereo. Will wireless HDMI do this for my glasses?

cheers, snoyt

I remember when Bluetooth was launched and it was going to be the solution to so many connectivity problems. Bluetooth would be ubiquitous and many non-computing devices would use it. Well, it hasn't quite worked out that way! Just about the only area of consumer technology that does find Bluetooth being used is mobile phones. I can't really think of anywhere else is has been used successfully. It's fine for what it is - a modern upgrade for I/R - but it hasn't really had much of an impact.

10 years huh?
How about improving that goddam awful bluetooth stack software for PC's?

I have lost count of the amount of times I have loaded Bluetooth software and never got it to work
My Bluetooth home, My Bluetooth places, Bluetooth com ports, do you want to assign a port?

WTF is that all about?

You need a degree in understanding b0lax to use one.

[Dogmann]

Hi all,

Well as someone that clearly remembers all the wonderful things Bluetooth was going to bring with seamless syncing as you came into range of your other devcies. I am for one feel Bluetooth has failed to deliver and for something that is meant to be one open standard it is quite incredible that there is so much incompatibility still with our devcies. Personally i also think A2DP has a long way to go before it can really replace wired solutions as well IMO. Here's hoping the next ten years sees Bluetooth actually deliver on what after was it's original claims.

Marc

[martinharnevie]

Some clarifications and comments here:

1. It's the Bluetooth Special Interest Group (SIG) which has its 10 years anniversary. Not the BT technology.

2. Those that say BT is overhyped must be blind as bats. The usage and growth speaks for itself. BT in gaming consoles, alone, is a 100 million units per annum business.

3. If some vendors implement poor BT stacks/drivers, BT per se should hardly be blamed for it. The same goes for poorly designed hardware. A large number of "BT devices" in the market place, espcially low cost BT units from China etc, are actually not BT certified while still, illegally, carrying the BT logo. Same things, even worse, happens with WiFi.

4. 95% of the problems people face with BT printing is related to Windows XP's extremely poor handing of buffers. Not with BT.

5. To Dogmann, kindly quote your reference to BT's "original claims". I think what you are referring to are certain product manufacturers' claims. Not Bluetooth SIG's claims. BT is a technology standard. Like with all such standards there are good and bad products. Same with WiFi. Same with GSM. Same with various cable standards, like Ethernet.

6. Since I'm partially in the Bluetooth business, i can just list a number of areas where Bluetooth is being used in large scale today:
- Machine control in factories
- Acquisition of data from medical instruments
- Data links for content updates to large information displays
- Rapid diagnosis of vehicles, e.g. AA alone in the UK have such BT devices installed in 3600 of their road assistance vehicles.
- Data uploads and refresh of large fleets of PDAs, e.g. police
- Long range datacommunication for integration of mobile livestock equipment over large farms, e.g. feeding stations, race machines, gates
- Data comms between computer and handheld barcode/rfid scanners for retail.
- Remote meter reading, e.g. electricity
- Gaming consoles

In terms of number of BT chips sold, the mobile phone and headset market still dominates, but even this little list is enough to demonstrate that those alleging that BT is not ubiquitous/pervasive do not know what they're talking about.

[Dogmann]

@martinharnevie

What i am talking about is the promise that Bluetooth on your computer would automatically recognise your phone as it came into range and sync with it without any further input required by the user as just one example. All of this would be seamless to the user whether it was his work computer or home computer and all syncs would be bi directional constantly updating all the fields chosen for syncing in the devcies in both directions. I'm not saying this can't be done but not without user intervention nad ina lot of cases luck.

Also the fact that even now ten years on there is plenty of bluetooth devcies that just will not talk to each other at all Hands free car kits are the prime example some phones will work with them whilst others won't. Which is pretty strange for what is meant to be one open standard where any devcie with the correct profile and permissions should have no difficulty in communication.

Or are you going to tell me all of the above is incorrect and Bluetooth is perfect? This is why i claim Bluetooth has failed to deliver on it's promise and don't even get me started on A2DP and it's problems. To be honest the only thing i ever use Bluetooth for is a headset whilst driveing and that's it otherwise IMO it's just not worth it. I admit it's come along way from the first Ericsson bluetooth headset i saw and used at the Mobile Data show in Earls court but even that was then delayed a further 6 months before they got it working properly.

Marc

Originally Posted by Dogmann

@martinharnevie

What i am talking about is the promise that Bluetooth on your computer would automatically recognise your phone as it came into range and sync with it without any further input required by the user as just one example. All of this would be seamless to the user whether it was his work computer or home computer and all syncs would be bi directional constantly updating all the fields chosen for syncing in the devcies in both directions. I'm not saying this can't be done but not without user intervention nad ina lot of cases luck.

Ubuntu "Gutsy" + Evolution + Multisync + low-end SE Walkman phone here. Auto-sync over Bluetooth works well enough.

[ares]

I use bluetooth for calls and stereo music every single day...i can´t live without it. I use it less for file transfers. Besides, i use it alot on my Nintendo Wii, for obvious reasons - btw the gaming market is really becoming huge for bt, because both Wii and PS3 use it on the controllers, headsets, etc

[martinharnevie]

Hi Dogmann, with all due respect, I just cannot recognise or even relate those experiences of yours with my own experiences. They are entirely incompatible.

1. Unless you come up with a technology that can read your mind and understand and implement all your bodily desires, there is no such thing as "seamless" without the user spending some time configuring the system. And no matter what, this seamlessness have very little to do with BT, but rather the syncing application and the operating system. (BTW, I tell you what, with a test rig of an F2M03GLA BT module connected to a old Psion 5mx ~ ok it looks awful but it works ~, a Dell Inspiron 6400 on Windows XP and PsiWin, I've been running seamless syncing (as per your definition) for about a year now. )

2. With regards to the claim of incompatibilities between BT devices, I must say I just do not have anywhere near the kind of experiences you portray here. I'm just surprised how well and simple the 2 quid 'illegally BT' headset from an obscure manufacturer in China pairs with my Nokia 9300, my Dell Inspiron - for Skype calls - and my wife's P990. I'd say about a 100 different BT devices have passed my hands during the last 5 years and they've all work with one single exception. That's not saying i've not encountered problems, but at the end of the day, these problems have turned out to be more a matter of my sincere hatred of reading manuals - especially when they're written in chinglish - than any issues with the BT products per se. I can only conclude, somewhat unwillingly, that even the most awful BT products from the most obscure and 'unwanted' manufacturers still seem to work pretty well.

3. And what's the problem really with A2DP? It has been perfectly clear to everyone from day one that A2DP can only provide MP3 level audio quality with Bluetooth v2.0 and v2.1. I think there is a tendency for people to dream about CD/DAT quality, i.e. 44.1 kHz sampling, 18 bit resolution, and then blaming BT for not providing it. I think this is most unreasonable. It's been perfectly clear in the specifications that A2DP will not provide this. I've tried a number of products, both using my own company's A2DP BT modules and competitors A2DP BT modules, and i must say i'm generally pretty impressed.