Nokia's Wibree joins Bluetooth

Nokia corp has developed a new ultra-low-power Wibree technology that will be part of the Bluetooth specification under an agreement reached by the Wibree Forum and the Bluetooth Special Interest Group (SIG).

The common areas where Bluetooth is mostly used are headsets, keyboards, and mice to stereos and PCs, which are all usually large devices. But Wibree comes into play when the device is small, say a button-cell battery-powered device, such as watches or sensors attached to a user's body. Wibree uses the same 2.4 GHz frequency as Bluetooth.

Michael Foley, executive director of Bluetooth SIG, said, "We look at this as an addition to the Bluetooth family of specifications, enabling a new class of devices that Bluetooth isn't really suitable for today."

Nokia's research arm had developed the Wibree in October 2006 and had also announced the establishment of an industry forum, whose members include Broadcom Corp. and STMicroelectronics NV, to define a specification.

The main goal of this collaboration between Nokia and Bluetooth SIG is to develop specifications for two types of ultra-low-cost implementations: a single-mode implementation for watches, sensors and other tiny devices to communicate with each other, and a dual-mode implementation to communicate with both single-mode and traditional Bluetooth devices.

The range of Ultra-low-power Bluetooth will be 10 metres, similar to the Bluetooth Class 2 specification, which requires more energy. SIG says that a button-cell battery-powered device, equipped with ultra-low-power Bluetooth technology, will be designed to have an average operating life of one year. This connection could be able to transmit data at speeds of up to 1Mbit/sec. But a range of 1000 metres will be available for High-power Bluetooth Class 3 range.

Bluetooth SIG is hoping to finalise the ultra-low-power Bluetooth specifications in the first half of 2008, with the first products, most likely single-mode devices, to hit the market in the second half of the year.