DailyTech - Bluetooth over Wi-Fi Coming in April

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Hardware Bluetooth over Wi-Fi Coming in April
Shane McGlaun (Blog) - February 17, 2009 10:54 AM

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18 comment(s) - last by djc208.. on Feb 18 at 7:02 AM

The really good news is that your Bluetooth and Wi-Fi devices may already support the specification

Two ubiquitous technologies that have made our mobile lives easier, wireless, and faster are Bluetooth and Wi-Fi. Without these two specifications, we would be stuck with wires for connecting to mobile devices and networks in our homes and offices.

The two specifications are found in many smartphones and laptops today and usually operate independently of each other. A new specification called alternate MAC/PHY for Bluetooth will have Wi-Fi and Bluetooth working together.

The technical name for the new specification is a mouthful but at its core the specifications is Bluetooth over Wi-Fi. What happens is that two devices like your laptop and smartphone, for example, will find each other via Bluetooth. Once the devices find each other and are paired, you can start to send data like images over the Bluetooth connection. At the point of transmission, the data would be diverted from Bluetooth to the integrated Wi-Fi connection and sent at Wi-Fi speeds up to 54Mbps, much higher speed than Bluetooth is capable of. After the data is sent Bluetooth would be the controlling connection again.

Gizmodo reports that the specification for Bluetooth over Wi-Fi will be official in April. If you already own a stable of newer smartphones and laptops the good news is that many devices currently on the market already support the feature.

Broadcom's Mukul Suth told Gizmodo that some of the chipsets already on the market support the standard and will only need software update to activate it. The Bluetooth Special Interest Group says that the specification will allow you to wirelessly bulk synchronize music libraries between a PC and MP3 player, bulk download photos to a printer or PC and send video files form a camera or phone to your computer or TV all without wires.

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Latency & Necessity

By Alpha4 on 2/17/2009 11:30:01 AM , Rating: 2

This sounds very cool, but two things worry me..

I was of the impression that bluetooth would eventually be made obsolete by Wifi technology. My understanding was that power consumption was the key hurdle to implementing wifi in smaller devices. Couldn't the transmitting range of a Wifi device be scaled down to reduce power draw? That, plus advances in manufacturing process, would allow wifi to integrate in smaller devices.

That aside, I'm wondering what kind of latencies we can expect from all these extra hops in packet flow. I don't plan on using a mouse from beyond 10 metres of a computer, but a half-second lag for wireless headphones would be pretty annoying.

RE: Latency & Necessity

By segerstein on 2/17/2009 11:51:22 AM , Rating: 2

Why would BT be obsolete? You have BT mouse, BT headsets, BT keyboards, PIM over BT, PAN. You can't seriously expect your mouse or headsets to support wifi and have a decent battery life.

Phone to phone communication is also quite easy over BT. I don't even know how to send a file over wi-fi with my Nokia N95 8GB.

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RE: Latency & Necessity

By bldckstark on 2/17/2009 11:54:17 AM , Rating: 2

You use Wi-Fi headphones? How do you type in the ip address?

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RE: Latency & Necessity

By Alpha4 on 2/17/2009 12:09:14 PM , Rating: 2

quote:
You use Wi-Fi headphones? How do you type in the ip address?

Holographic input & display technology, duh.

Actually I think one of us has interpreted the article backwards. I read it as existing bluetooth devices transmitting over wifi. As such, I'm hoping my bluetooth enabled headphones can maybe receive audio from my computer beyond conventional bt range.

quote:
Why would BT be obsolete? You have BT mouse, BT headsets, BT keyboards, PIM over BT, PAN. You can't seriously expect your mouse or headsets to support wifi and have a decent battery life.

I'm not saying BT is obsolete now, what I meant was it should be made obsolete in the near future, for the reasons I stated above.

You're definitely right about wifi draining the battery life of a mouse or headset, but I'm wondering if the wifi tech itself can be optimised to reduce power consumption yet still be compatible with the existing standard. Sorry if I was unclear.

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RE: Latency & Necessity

By nafhan on 2/17/2009 12:52:51 PM , Rating: 3

It's probably talking about existing devices that have BT and WiFi already, not one or the other.
It sounds like the purpose of this is not to obsolete either BT or WiFi, but to allow WiFi connections to be configured using an existing BT connection.
A usage example (if this works like it sounds like from the article) would be:
1. Pair your phone to your PC using BT
2. Begin file transfer
3. The BT connection is automatically shunted over to WiFi for the duration of the file transfer
4. Transfer completes and connection reverts to just BT

This saves power by using BT when high speed is not necessary, makes it easier to connect because BT is easier than making a point to point WiFi connection, and provides higher speed than BT alone.

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RE: Latency & Necessity

By CZroe on 2/17/2009 8:14:09 PM , Rating: 3

When Bluetooth was firstarriving on "the scene" there obviously weren't very many appications beyond data transfer, so most people assumed that it was a dead-in-the-water competitor to 802.11 technologies (like HomeRF). I was very vocal back then telling everyone that they were DEAD WRONG. Bluetooth had a completely different aim. It was a form of low-bandwidth limited-range wirless I/O, like wireless USB, where WiFi was wireless Ethernet. No one said that USB was "obsolete" just because Gigabit Ethernet was on the scene, so these people sere simply confusing the aim of the two technologies. Who wants to configure networks settings and IP addresses to use their wireless mouse? Who wants to go through all that for pairing Wii Remotes to the Wii and DualShock 3 controllers to the PS3? Who wants to deal with the MESS of proprietary protocols over the wireless network? For example, one device would report battery life to a proprietary app one way while another would do it another way, thus necessitating another TSR app running in the background and hogging resources rather than running a simple Bluetooth stack.

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RE: Latency & Necessity

By sgtdisturbed47 on 2/18/2009 6:32:06 AM , Rating: 2

BT Obsolete? I guess in terms of speed, but ease-of-use is where BT is still strong. It pairs easily and with less hassle than WiFi. It's actually a brilliant technology that will last for quite a few more years.

I like this new tech though, it sounds great. I just hope that it's reliable.

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Sounds Cool

By Adonlude on 2/17/2009 4:06:54 PM , Rating: 3

Im sure Steve Jobs won't allow it to work with the iphone.

RE: Sounds Cool

By JediSmurf on 2/17/2009 7:07:41 PM , Rating: 2

Unless you buy the iBluFi accessory.

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RE: Sounds Cool

By djc208 on 2/18/2009 7:02:18 AM , Rating: 2

Not just Steve I'm sure. Why enable a feature with a free software upgrade when you can sell a new $400 smartphone with it instead.

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I don't get it

By Spivonious on 2/17/2009 12:00:12 PM , Rating: 2

Why not just make Bluetooth faster? Why bring Wi-Fi into the equation at all?

RE: I don't get it

By bobsmith1492 on 2/17/2009 2:54:48 PM , Rating: 2

BT=700kbps max throughput and it's limited for lower power consumption. There's no reason to increase it when Wi-fi exists.

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RE: I don't get it

By hameed on 2/18/2009 5:39:51 AM , Rating: 2

The more pressing question is why bring bluetooth in it in the first place?
What ease of setup are you talking about? With DHCP all the setup you need is input a password for security and you are connected.
If anything setting up two connections would only complicate things.

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bluetoothless

By Dreifort on 2/17/2009 11:25:02 AM , Rating: 4

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/29108112/

While having Bluetooth over WiFi sounds like a lot more freedom... how much software will I have to load my phone up with to keep it secure? Trend Micro Mobile AV?

Bluetooth is not that secure...and neither is public wifi, or targeted wifi. Put both together? security disaster.

By sprockkets on 2/17/2009 12:04:29 PM , Rating: 2

Sounds like wifi but with the ease of pairing with BT handshaking. Why not?

Of course, I'm still waiting for clear headset quality and even phone headset quality no matter what side it is on vs. what side the phone is on your body.