Nokia unveils Bluetooth alternative

Tuesday, October 03, 2006

Nokia unveiled today a new technology aimed at challenging Bluetooth. The new player in the short-range wireless communications market is named WiBree and is the result of five years of research by Nokia itself.

According to the Finnish corporation WiBree can work along other short-range connectivity solutions (read Bluetooth) and consumes only a fraction of the power needed by the other solutions. The head of the Nokia Research Center even said that this new technology is “up to 10 times more energy efficient than Bluetooth”.

This aspect of WiBree is fundamental because it will make it possible to pair small devices like watches, wireless mouses or health monitors with Bluetooth enabled devices. Until now it was not possible because of the relatively high power demand of Bluetooth. And with a tenth of the energy supplied the small devices will still be able to create a stable connection in the Bluetooth 10 meters (30 feet) range.

The next step is now to pass this technology through a standardization process to define the interoperability specification. In this stage the telecommunication giant will work alongside a group of semiconductor manufacturers, device vendors and qualification service providers.

Since Nokia intention is to make it available as soon as possible this process should not take too much time. The corporation in fact stated that WiBree is expected to be available during the second quarter of 2007 with products coming out few months later.

Speaking of the devices that will use WiBree Nokia also said that with a very low expense the new technology can be added to products that already support Bluetooth. As for new devices that plan to use WiBree Nokia obviously expects that they will only use the new technology.