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Nokia's Wibree Takes on Bluetooth

Posted by Zonk on Tue Oct 03, 2006 09:24 AM
from the breaking-from-the-herd dept.
Wireless Networking Hardware Technology
narramissic writes "Nokia has developed a new, short-range wireless technology, called Wibree, that it says is a lot more power efficient than Bluetooth, which means it could be used in smaller and less costly devices. It can also use the same radio and antenna components as Bluetooth, helping keep costs down further. Wibree could compete with Bluetooth in the workplace as a way to link keyboards and other peripherals to computers. But it could also have more interesting applications for consumers, in devices such as wrist watches, toys and sports equipment." What does this say about Bluetooth, considering Nokia is a member of the Bluetooth Promoters group?
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Troy Samuel writes "The WiMedia Alliance is planning to make the technology known as 'ultrawideband,' or UWB, work among a wide variety of consumer electronics devices. Various organizations, including the Bluetooth SIG, have chosen the WiMedia Alliance's version of UWB technology as the foundation for a next-generation short-range networking technology." From the article: "UWB technology can deliver data rates at up to 480 megabits per second at around 3 meters, with speeds dropping off as the range grows to a limit of about 10 meters. Real-world speeds will probably be a little slower, but this is as fast as the wired version of USB 2.0 and much faster than current Wi-Fi networks are capable of transmitting data. 'This stuff is plumbing,' Roger Kay, an analyst with Endpoint Technologies Associates, said of the newer-generation wireless technology. 'It's important that it be there, it's going to be handy for getting rid of cables hanging around your desk.'"
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  • It's probably too late (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Colin Smith (2679) on Tuesday October 03 2006, @09:27AM (#16291377)
    The network effect is cementing bluetooth in place. I can buy bluetooth keyboards, mice, earpieces already. OTOH, like Sony's memory stick, this may just be a way of locking dumb Nokia customers into a proprietary solution.

     

    • But it could also have more interesting applications for consumers, in devices such as wrist watches, toys and sports equipment.

      SWEET! I can sync my wrist watch with my computer now? I've always thought that networking a watch to connect w/ my computer and transferring the time over was soooo much more efficient than using those little dials.

      Now imagine the new hacking vulnerabilities! Millions of corporate workers late; all of whome blame hackers for altering their alarm clocks!

      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        by TheRaven64 (641858)
        You laugh, but I would find it useful for my watch alarm to be sync'd with events in my calendar. My mobile 'phone does this already, but I am more likely to have my watch with me than my mobile.

  • Stupid name kills technology (Score:5, Interesting)

    by BadAnalogyGuy (945258) <BadAnalogyGuy@gmail.com> on Tuesday October 03 2006, @09:28AM (#16291387)
    Sounds like they are trying to succeed in a non-existant market. The actual applications of Bluetooth are few and far between. The 'wireless' office never amounted to much and you know you look like an idiot with that earpiece and talking to yourself at Starbucks.

    So what is a company to do? How about rebrand the technology with a worse name than it originally had? That's the ticket!
    • Nokia's has fallen under the influence of Nintendo's marketing department. Although it should be the Wiibre if they're going to name it correctly.

    • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

      by aadvancedGIR (959466)
      Funny enough, one of the few clever (and relatively sucessful) application of bluetooth was an universal handfree kit for cars. BTW, we are talking about a phone manufacturer that tells us that soon, the devices they sell will do almost anything except voice calls, so I'm not that surprised.

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by bazorg (911295)
      you know you look like an idiot with that earpiece and talking to yourself at Starbucks.The first time I visited a cold snowy place, a lot of people seemed comfortable about walking around with their hands in their pockets and using bluetooth headsets.

  • What does this say about Bluetooth? (Score:3, Informative)

    by Reality Master 201 (578873) on Tuesday October 03 2006, @09:28AM (#16291391) Journal
    Uh, that Nokia would rather sell a technloogy that's all their own than promote one they don't completely control?
    • Uh, that Nokia would rather sell a technloogy that's all their own than promote one they don't completely control?
      ...especially one that was originally developed by rival Ericsson, who is the #1 seller of Bluetooth chipsets?
      • ...especially one that was originally developed by rival Ericsson, who is the #1 seller of Bluetooth chipsets?

        If the new tech is compatable with bluetooth radios and antennas, how does this rage against the Ericsson machine?

        Further, I wonder if it's simply a matter of a software change on the hardware - which would make manufacturing of this stuff a no-brainer, and bluetooth receivers could quickly become dual-mode receivers.

        • I'm not totally sure here, but it's my understanding that the "chipset" may (depending on context) not include the radio.

          So saying that it uses the same radio as Bluetooth may not mean that it's just a drop-in software change; the chipset which actually decodes what the radio recieves and does useful things with it, may be totally different.

          I assume that the radios are basically off-the-shelf items; I'm sure you can go to any number of manufacturers and get them (Motorola, Analog Devices, National, etc.); t

      • Re:What does this say about Bluetooth? (Score:4, Informative)

        by lawpoop (604919) on Tuesday October 03 2006, @11:17AM (#16292959) Homepage Journal
        I got modded down as 'troll' and 'offtopic' for stating this ealier [slashdot.org], but aside from the corporate competition, there is also the social/ethnic competition between Swedes and Finns. Actually, I think it is felt more by the Finns that they are in the shadow of Sweden. Sweden ruled Finland for a long time, and Sweden is wealthier than Finland, and Finns sort of have this complex about not being wholly Scandinavian.

        I am not just making this up. If you read the Finnish epic, which is said to characterize the finnish temperament, the hero Vainamoinen is actually an anti-hero. He is born old, never in his prime. One of the first stories about him is when he approaches a young bathing maiden and she runs away screaming. In the climax of the story, he rallies the troops to win back a magical device from a tribe of harpies, only to lose it in the sea during the epic battle. He's just not a winner.

        The parent I posed my original topic had said that 'a better tech had come along'. What a socially naive geek perspective. Sure, new things just drop out of the sky like clockwork. People are never motivated by petty social identies, like Ohio State vs. Michigan, US vs. Canada, MS vs. Apple, Ericsson vs. Nokia, or Finland vs. Swedend.

        So my votes goes for a Nokia vs. Ericsson, Finland vs. Sweden thing.
        • Sorry, I missed a word: the name of the Finnish epic is the 'Kalevala'.
        • And one other thing - language. Finnish is pretty much only spoken by them and Hungary. Swedish has commonalities with Danish and Norwegian, I'm lead to believe.
          So, if I had to learn either Swedish or Finnish, it'll be .se for me.
          • To get a bit more specific, Finnish and Hungarian belong to the Finno-Ugric language family. Most of the rest of Europe speak languages in the Indo-European family.

            Hungarian and Finnish are mutually unintelligible. They look pretty dissimilar in written form. The closest language to Finnish is Estonian -- I'm not sure if Estonia is considered Europe. It was part of the Soviet Union; now it is independent and a member of the EU. Finns and Estonians can *basically* understand each other and the written lang

  • Too many technologies (Score:5, Interesting)

    by ocdude (932504) on Tuesday October 03 2006, @09:31AM (#16291423)
    While it's always cool to hear about new tech coming out, it makes me crazy when I hear about a new tech that is going to replace an "older" tech when the "older" tech hasn't even been around for too long. So, right now, I don't even own any bluetooth things. If this new Wibree thing starts to proliferate as much as bluetooth, does that mean that now I will have to monitor everything I buy to make sure that it works with my particular hardware? IE will I have to make sure my new laptop has both bluetooth (for "legacy devices) and wibree for whatever nokia throws at us?

    The same can be said about just about any new tech that is to replace and not be compatible with old tech. USB, IMHO, did it right. USB2.0 is backwards compatible with USB1.1

    • It's like they introduce new "standards" for the sake of having new standards, not because they address any particular problem. I have bluetooth crap all over the place (scanners, headsets, printers, telemetry nodes), and I have no intention of changing it all over. Much like anything that takes a Sony memory stick, it's just another reason to avoid certain vendors and products.
  • Nintendo Wiibree anyone?

  • Bluetooth 2.0? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by erroneus (253617) on Tuesday October 03 2006, @09:37AM (#16291515) Homepage
    Perhaps in the same way USB 2.0 emerged, Bluetooth 2.0 is due? Faster, lower power requirements, backward compatibility. Seems like the natural and sensible thing to do.

    • Re:Bluetooth 2.0? (Score:5, Informative)

      by Andy Dodd (701) <atd7 AT cornell DOT edu> on Tuesday October 03 2006, @10:05AM (#16291887) Homepage
      Been around for a while.

      Higher data rates, higher sound quality for headsets, error correction for headset audio (read: significantly increased range and quality).

      They still haven't fixed the compatibility nightmares of Bluetooth. God forbid you might want to use a Motorola headset with a Treo for example! It'll work, but barely, and most functionality (such as picking up a call from the headset) won't work.

      The state of Bluetooth stacks for Windows is even worse. Microsoft's stack doesn't seem to support anything other than the serial profile - no headset audio, no AD2P. Only 50% of the stacks available a few months ago supported headset audio, even fewer supported AD2P (high quality stereo audio). Every single Bluetooth stack insists on making the headset the default audio device for the entire system, which is useless (and incredibly annoying) when you only want to use it for a SIP/IAX softphone, Skype, Teamspeak, Ventrilo, or similar stuff. Last but not least, even though most Bluetooth stacks support the majority of hardware chipsets out there, every single one is locked to a specific device vendor. i.e. if you buy a Dell with a CSR chipset, it'll come with the Toshiba bluetooth stack (worthless since it puts all serial devices at COM40 or above which most apps don't support). The WIDCOMM stack works with CSR chipsets, but is locked to whatever vendor's CSR-based dongle you got the stack with. You can't even upgrade to a recent version in most cases. (Buy a dongle with a WIDCOMM 3.x stack, and you can't upgrade to 5.x legally).

      From what I've heard, both Microsoft and Logitech BT keyboards/mice don't work well unless you use the dongle and BT stack that came with the hardware - what's the point of being Bluetooth in that case?

      About the only Bluetooth device I've ever used that worked well is my GPS receiver. I've tried 3 different headsets with my Treo and 2-3 different BT stacks on my PC for use with those headsets and have never been satisfied with the results.
      • Hate to bring up the "it just works" thing but Bluetooth works fine on a Mac, with headsets or keyboards or whatever. All new macs come with Bluetooth 2.0 integrated already, and have since the Intel switch (plus a bit before that).

        • Most of the bluetooth phones i've tried don't "just work" with a mac.
          • The only one I tried worked great, although it didn't "just work" in the usual Mac way. I had to do some non-standard setup for some of this but I used it as a wireless GPRS modem, synced via bluetooth, and had Salling Clicker [salling.com] installed giving me all sorts of fun goodies. It was an Ericsson something-or-other. I'm back to CDMA land now so I don't use it any more.

            Currently I use a Logitech bluetooth mouse which "just works", as well as an Apple bluetooth keyboard which "just works", as one would expect
            • Mice and keyboards "just work" in Windows, too, as do phones once you go through the effort of installing software. The point is that there isn't a difference. I use a MS BT mouse with my MBP. It just worked just as it did with my Windows notebook.
          • Not sure what you've been using, but I've used a variety of Motorola phones and they all seem to "just work" fine. Address Book sync, Object transfer for photos and video ... getting it working as a data modem was a bit of a pain but 95% of that was T-Mobile's fault; the phone talked to the Mac from the first moment onwards without problems. The computer doesn't give me crap about using some crummy generic USB BT dongle, either. (Unlike Windows where I'd need to install vendor-supplied drivers.)

            Then again,
            • Yep, Moto's have worked for me.

              "The computer doesn't give me crap about using some crummy generic USB BT dongle, either. (Unlike Windows where I'd need to install vendor-supplied drivers.)"

              I assume that's because you're using Apple's builtin BT? Fair comparison. Windows notebooks come with BT built in frequently as well. You don't get the problem you describe with those either.

              "Then again, the phone has also worked pretty well with my IBM laptop and its BT implementation, so maybe more credit is due to M
          • My last three 'phones have been an Ericsson T68, a Sony Ericsson T610 and a Nokia N70. All of these have sync'd with iCal and Address Book correctly, they have allowed me to transfer files between the Mac and 'phone easily via Bluetooth and have functioned as a wireless modem over Bluetooth with minimal configuration.

            Perhaps you could be more specific?

            • My Nokia E61, Treo 650 and my WM5 phone (Tmobile MDA) have all not worked. My SE's and Moto's have.

              I think it's well known that cell phones are problematic. If they weren't, Apple wouldn't feel the need to enumerate the ones that were supported.

              http://www.apple.com/macosx/features/isync/devices .html [apple.com]

              BTW, this is not a list of BT supported phones, it's a list of ALL supported phones. Some don't work with BT. Not a very big list is it?
            • Don't know in what way. The Treo 650 in particular is incompatible with address book standards due to it's categories tag. When I had a Treo 650 (which I gave up because it was so unstable) it would not work with Tiger out of the box. That may have changed at this point. More likely, you've installed the Palm software and use BT with that. When I owned both, in order to support the 650 on mac through mac's address book, you had to install the Palm software PLUS a 3rd party bridge--- hardly "it just wo
                • Did you also install Palm Sync first?

                  Yes, Missing Sync is the software but it isn't part of OS X and the claim was that BT "just worked" with a mac. That is not true for cell phones. Some do work, Moto and some SE in my experience, and address sync *should* be part of that. Ideally, you should be able to sync *any* BT cell phone address book to mac and then back to any other cell phone. That most definitely does not work. It doesn't work in Windows either, but then again Windows isn't the one that adve
    • There already is a Bluetooth 2.0, and beyond that, there is an Enhanced Data Rate(EDR) expansion that improves bandwidth speeds. I'm curious how effecient the Nokia solution will be, as bluetooth chips are getting more and more power friendly. I bought a Plantronics 645 with DSP (bluetooth headset) recently, and this thing gives me several days of standby time and at the very least 7-8 hours of talk time. I end up charging it like twice per week... if it could be moved down to "once" per week, that would be

  • Doesn't say much (Score:3, Interesting)

    by AlastairMurray (537904) on Tuesday October 03 2006, @09:40AM (#16291543) Homepage

    From the summary:

    "What does this say about Bluetooth, considering Nokia is a member of the Bluetooth Promoters group?"

    It says that Bluetooth is years old and now some that is (possibly) better has come along, nothing more.

  • What does this say about Bluetooth

    It says that the stupid Trademarkable Name(TM) thing wasn't a one off, and we can expect all future networking interfaces to have some stupid name in the future. Not only will that be insanely annoying, but it will allow companies to collect royalties to be able to claim compatability with 'open' protocols indefinatly. Yes, technology companies have finally found a direct revenue way to exploit the previously harmless trademark laws, and to bypass that pesky patent term len

  • Security this time? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by RedDirt (3122) * on Tuesday October 03 2006, @09:52AM (#16291705) Homepage
    One can only hope they've invested more time in securing the communications channel than in Bluetooth. Bluesnarfing [wikipedia.org] for the win! Or something. =/

  • Wibree vs ZigBee? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by uss_valiant (760602) on Tuesday October 03 2006, @09:55AM (#16291741) Homepage
    From TFA:
    Wibree isn't the only contender for use in wireless sensors, however. Zigbee is an ongoing standardization project and has similar characteristics to Wibree.
    I know BT and ZigBee [zigbee.org] (about ZigBee [wikipedia.org]), but never heard about Wibree. I'm pretty disappointed that Nokia wants to go with this proprietary approach.
    Anyway, there's a lot going on in IEEE 802.15 (Personal Area Network) [wikipedia.org].
  • I have a Nokia phone, and it has Bluetooth.

    When I bought the phone, I also bought a Bluetooth headset. I gave up on the Bluetooth pretty quickly: The headset would only run for about five hours before needing to be recharged, and the phone's standby time was cut down massively.

    This isn't a complaint about Bluetooth as such. It's more that current devices, as delivered, don't provide long-enough standby time, never mind talk time, when Bluetooth is enabled.
    • SOme nokia handsets/headsets keep the bluetooth connection on continously. This was a major complaint about the Nokias.

      Sony Ericssons tend to pulse/ping the connection, only turning on the full link when there is a call, giving far greater standby times.

      Again, its more a case of different devices doing different things. Each has its advantages and disadvantages
    • My SE T610 runs for 2-3 days in standby with BT on plus several short calls a day. But since I charge it nightly anyway, that's a non-issue. Phones that can't even standby a single day with BT on have a serious issue.
    • When I bought the phone, I also bought a Bluetooth headset. I gave up on the Bluetooth pretty quickly: The headset would only run for about five hours before needing to be recharged, and the phone's standby time was cut down massively.

      Not to mention you look like some kind of massive dork from a sci-fi movie and are usually perceived by the general public as talking to yourself.

      • I must confess that I am a little taken aback by the sight of people who seem to be having conversations with themselves.

        Nonetheless, I wanted to try it so I could have recordings of "Champs Elysees" (s French current affairs CD I get every month) play with the ability to interrupt on an incoming call. I thought Bluetooth is expensive in standby, then I tried using it to play MP3s. That was a power hog, let me tell you.

  • The problem with Bluetooth.. (Score:4, Insightful)

    by pablo_max (626328) on Tuesday October 03 2006, @10:17AM (#16292105)
    The main problems with Bluetooth in my mind are complexity and cost. Qualifying a Bluetooth chip is a major pain in the butt. You need to qualify the radio part, the stack and profiles separately depending on what kind of product you have. And speaking of profiles, there are something like 30 Bluetooth profiles. Most of which overlap! So often time when you are implementing one profile you also cover all the mandatory features of another so you have to claim that one as well since you are seen as using that profiles IP! It's crazy.
    Then there is the cost. 10k to list your product. If you want to add something to it after you listed it...10k please. Not to mention the testing. 30k please.
    Bluetooth was going to be less then 2 bucks per radio. It's still almost double that. The Bluetooth SIG is way out of control.
    IMO Nokia is smart to jump ship. However, they cant go it alone. If they were able to get Motorola on board and perhaps Samsung, I can see no reason why a lower cost alternative would not work. Assuming that data rates are there.

  • Bluetooth 2? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Midnight Thunder (17205) on Tuesday October 03 2006, @10:17AM (#16292107) Homepage Journal
    Maybe they would have more luck trying to integrate this into the Bluetooth standard and proposing this as Bluetooth 2, ensuring that it stays compatible. While I understand Nokia trying to provide a new and improved technology, it needs to be done in a way not to confuse the already semi-confused buying public. By making it work with Bluetooth, in the same way as USB 1 and USB 2 or the B, G and A versions of the 802.11 standard.

  • my $0.02 of opinion (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Goeland86 (741690) <goeland_86@yahoo3.14159.fr minus pi> on Tuesday October 03 2006, @10:48AM (#16292543)
    Having seen a few presentations about network standards, and especially wireless network standards, I think that Nokia is just trying to enhance the existing technology. Granted, there may not be a strong commercial gain to it, but the fact remains that bluetooth has been a more or less static protocol since its inception. Wifi on the other hand went through several revisions: 802.11a, b/g, now the upcoming n... There's a lot of development put into wifi. I attended a conference from Intel researchers saying they were working on enhancing the 802.11 protocol to work in a de-centralized manner, so I'm looking at this, and I'm thinking: well Wibre might just push Bluetooth further than it is. Using the same hardware base is also good, because it'll bring down manufacturing costs. I'm willing to bet we'll see the Bluetooth consortium jump on the bandwagon and help nokia widespread Wibre under a label like "Bluetooth 2.0" or something similar. Hardware and software updates all the time, why wouldn't protocols?
  • With Wireless USB http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wireless_USB [wikipedia.org] based on MB-OFDM on the way and backed by big names like Intel, I dont think it stands a chance. The days of proprietary technologies are over. Nobody wants to pay licensing fees anymore.

  • It says.. (Score:4, Insightful)

    by -Neko- (67564) on Tuesday October 03 2006, @11:24AM (#16293077) Homepage
    That Bluetooth isn't cheap or power efficient enough for certain devices.

    That's about all :)

    Not that Bluetooth isn't good and that Nokia don't like promoting it or using it, but Bluetooth is not a panacea - just a standard.

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by mspohr (589790)
      There is already a standard to take care of these issues (IEEE_802.15 and ZigBee) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IEEE_802.15 [wikipedia.org]

      We don't need another proprietary standard... it looks like Nokia is just trying to have some standard that they can own so we'll buy more of their stuff... time to run away from this.


      • Firstly, there can't be one standard which fits all devices. It's impossible to define without creating a bunch of semi-compatible subsets which need bridging devices.. which would defeat the object of a standard for all.

        Secondly, Wibree is also Bluetooth compatible, but lower data rate, and lower range than the higher end protocols.

        Thirdly, ZigBee is for *extremely* low data rates and focussed on home automation.
        • The ZigBee is designed for very low power consumption and data rates up to 250 kbits/sec which is plenty for voice and even low res video.

          TFA states that Wibree requires "dual mode" chips to be compatible with Bluetooth... sounds like two different protocols on one chip. ZibBee also can use the 2.4 Gig band so I guess it is as "compatible" with Bluetooth as Wibree.

          It still looks to me that Nokia is trying to design a new proprietary standard and force it on the market so they can make big bucks from lice

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