Did you wish you were able to transfer digital pictures, video and large files between cell phones, laptops and other devices?
Then, the Bluetooth 3.0 is here to do just that.
April 21st, 2009 saw the announcement by Bluetooth SIG of its new Bluetooth 3.0 + HS specification, dubbed as Bluetooth High Speed Technology. The new Bluetooth wireless standard builds upon the previous standards and is reportedly up to 160 times as fast as Bluetooth 2.2. This is good news for manufacturers of handsets and PMPs, expanding the range of possibilities to include Bluetooth media streaming and much larger file transfers. A technology like this has the potential to revolutionize the consumer electronics industry.
The standards and specification of this new technology will show makers of wireless electronics how to design these devices so that they can send and receive data using either the Bluetooth or 802.11 wireless data transfer protocols (sometimes known as Wi-Fi).
Bluetooth 3.0 also allows applications using 802.11 for connectivity, to use just a burst of 802.11 power to send data and then shut off the radio until it is required again. This ensures that it works efficiently and without draining power.
A notable achievement is that Bluetooth 3.0 is expected to deliver short-range wireless speeds of up to 480 Megabytes per second in close proximity, and 12.5 Megabytes per second at 10 meters. That makes high-quality streaming video a definite possibility. In fact the possibilities are endless – video cameras can stream video footage to Bluetooth enabled computers and televisions, a picture or movie can be transferred between your laptop and your smart phone, laptops can transfer presentations to a projector wirelessly, to name just a few.
Users will have no worries about interference from wireless networks and other devices as the high bandwidth (in the 6-9 GHz range) of Bluetooth 3.0 eliminates the possibility of interference of devices that use the 2.4 GHz range.
The new Bluetooth 3.0 standard is anticipated to remove not only wires, but all communication barriers between devices that have existed for years.
Ultra Wideband (UWB) is not supported in Bluetooth 3.0 due to technical issues, so 3.0 will end up being 8 to 10 times faster. So the expected speed is only 24 Mbps instead of the originally anticipated 480 Mbps. And UWB’s range is only a few meters anyway.