The news
Nokia is floating the idea of a new low-cost, close-range wireless standard, Wibree, that consumes far less power than Bluetooth and makes connectivity possible even with watches, toys, sports-sensors and other small devices powered only by button-cells. Wibree would also lessening the close-range power-requirements of existing wireless devices, such as keyboards and mice - and of mobile phones, too.
Devices using Wibree will, it's said, deliver Bluetooth-like performance within at a range up to 10m, with a data rate of 1Mbps (about one-third the speed of Bluetooth 2.0).
Although Wibree will be seen as rival to Bluetooth - which it certainly is in a good few cases - Nokia says that it can be easily integrated with Bluetooth solutions.
It will be offered in two forms - as a Bluetooth-Wibree dual-mode chip or as a stand-alone Wibree chip. Small devices will use stand-alone chips whereas Bluetooth devices can use dual-mode to extend their connectivity to a new range of small devices.
Nokia reckons that the first commercial version of the interoperability specification will be available during the second quarter of 2007. It isn't predicting when the first chips might ship or come into use but says that the goal is have the new technology available "as fast as possible".
The company describes Wibree as an open industry initiative and says that the spec is being defined by a group of leading firms.
In addition to Nokia, the current members of the group defining the spec are said to be Broadcom Corporation, CSR, Epson and Nordic Semiconductor (who've licensed the Wibree technology for commercial chip-implementation), along with Suunto and Taiyo Yuden.
Significantly, though, none of the other firms that formed with Nokia the original Bluetooth special-interest group in 1998 has yet joined theWibree group and it's not clear where these companies - Ericsson, Sony Ericsson, IBM, Intel and Toshiba - stand.
Check out Nokia's press release on page two then give us your views on this new initiative - and on Bluetooth - in this thread in the HEXUS.lifestyle.news forum.
HEXUS.links
HEXUS.community :: discussion thread about this articleExternal.links
Wibree - home pageNokia - home page
Wikipedia - Wibree
Bluetooth - home page
Wikipedia - Bluetooth
