BLUETOOTH SIG INTRODUCES BLUETOOTH LOW ENERGY

WIRELESS TECHNOLOGY, THE NEXT

GENERATION BLUETOOTH WIRELESS TECHNOLOGY
In December 2009, the Bluetooth Special Interest Group (SIG) announced the adoption of Bluetooth low energy wireless technology, the hallmark feature of the Bluetooth Core
Specification Version 4.0. This enhancement to the Core Specification enables vast new opportunities for developers and manufacturers of Bluetooth technology and brings to life
entirely new markets for devices requiring low cost and low power wireless connectivity. Bluetooth low energy wireless technology will enable a plethora of new applications -
some not even possible or imagined today - in many markets including healthcare, sports and fitness, security, and home entertainment. Read the full press release.

In March 2010, the Bluetooth SIG hosted a Bluetooth Technology Conference that brought 200 product and application developers together in one location for technology updates,
training, and networking opportunities. This special event, which featured Bluetooth low energy technology, offered participants the opporutnity to view demonstrations and
attend learning sessions on applications including health care, sports and fitness, watch, mobile phone, home automation, smart energy and much more!

View presentations from the Bluetooth Technology Conference

Use Case Videos

Lifestyle Healthcare Sports & Fitness

Bluetooth low energy in action

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Wibree
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Wibree logo
Wibree is a digital radio technology (intended to become an open standard of wirelesscommunications) designed for ultra low power consumption

(button cell batteries) within a short range (10 meters / 30 ft) based around low-cost transceiver microchips in each device.[1] As of June, 2007 Wibree

is known as Bluetooth ultra low power, in 2008 renamed Bluetooth low energy.[2]

Contents

[hide]

• 1 History

• 2 Technical information

o 2.1 Power consumption

• 3 See also

• 4 References

• 5 External links

[edit]History

In 2001, Nokia researchers determined that there were various scenarios that contemporary wireless technologies did not address. To address the

problem, Nokia Research Center started the development of a wireless technology adapted from the Bluetooth standard which would provide lower

power usage and price while minimizing difference between Bluetooth and the new technology. The results were published in 2004 using the name

Bluetooth Low End Extension.[1] After further development with partners, e.g., within EU FP6 project MIMOSA, the technology was released to public

in October 2006 with brand name Wibree.[2] After negotiations with Bluetooth SIG members, in June 2007, an agreement was reached to include

Wibree in future Bluetooth specification as an Bluetooth ultra-low-power technology, now known asBluetooth low energy technology.[3]

[edit]Technical information

Wibree is designed to work side-by-side with and complement Bluetooth. It operates in 2.4 GHz ISM band with physical layer bit rate of 1Mbit/s. Main

applications include devices such as wrist watches, wireless keyboards, toys and sports sensors where low power consumption is a key design

requirement. The technology was announced on 3 October 2006 by Nokia. Partners that currently license the technology and cooperate in defining

the specification are Nordic Semiconductor, Broadcom Corporation, CSR and Epson. Other contributors are Suunto andTaiyo Yuden.[4]

Wibree is not designed to replace Bluetooth, but rather to complement the technology in supported devices. Wibree-enabled devices will be smaller

and more energy-efficient than their Bluetooth counterparts.[3] This is especially important in devices such as wristwatches, where Bluetooth models

may be too large and heavy to be comfortable. Replacing Bluetooth with Wibree will make the devices closer in dimensions and weight to current

standard wristwatches.

Bob Iannucci, head of Nokia's Research Centre, claims the technology is up to ten times more efficient than Bluetooth.[5] Reportedly, it will have an

output power around -6 dBm.[6] Nordic Semiconductor is aiming to sample Wibree chips during the second half of 2007.[7]

[edit]Power consumption

Chip manufacturers do not disclose power consumption data on data sheets. This specification item depends on the operational duty cycles.

Therefore the authentic data may be obtained just with experimental board set-ups and respective firmware test environment. Respective test
environment specification to normalize and directly compare the offered alternatives are not available (2008-10-19). See for example: Nordic

nRF24LE1

Wibree
Show me everything on WiMAX, 3G and Wireless Broadband

definition -

Wibree, also called "Baby Bluetooth," is a low-power wireless local area

network (WLAN) technology that facilitates interoperability among mobile and
portable consumer devices such as pagers, personal digital assistants (PDAs),
wireless computer peripherals, entertainment devices and medical equipment.

Originally conceived by Nokia and developed in conjunction with Broadcom,

CSR and others, Wibree is similar to Bluetooth but consumes a small fraction
of the battery power. Wibree operates at a range of 5 to 10 meters (about 16.5
to 33 feet) with a data rate of up to 1 megabit per second (Mbps) in the 2.4-
GHz radio-frequency (RF) band. Wibree may be deployed on a stand-alone
chip or on a dual-mode chip along with conventional Bluetooth.

What is Wibree?
By Adam Stone
January 5, 2007

Last October, Nokia introduced Wibree technology. Analysts say it could

capture major market share. Nokia says it could open up broad new wireless
uses. The wireless community says: what is it?

The short answer is, it's an extension to Bluetooth, one that extends the
capabilities of the Bluetooth protocol to better enable low-power uses and to
better process data intermittently, rather than continuously.

That's a potentially powerful formula, according to the analysts at ABI

Research, who say the market for Wibree products could reach $513 million by
2011. "I think there is a valid market for it," says principal analyst Stuart
Carlaw.
That market could encompass a range of small, low-power devices, things like
heart monitors for exercise or wireless wristwatches to serve as data ports for
mobile phones. Wibree's low power consumption will enable these uses,
according to Jamey Hicks, director of Nokia Research Center Cambridge.
"Bluetooth is great," he says. "You see how small headsets get. But if you want
something even smaller than that, you need less power."

Wibree isn't meant to replace Bluetooth. Rather, it's intended to operate side-
by-side with the existing protocol, offering dual-mode functionality depending
on the need.

While such potential uses may intrigue, some may wonder whether the world
of telecom either wants or needs a new form of wireless connectivity.

The potential success of Wibree could depend in large measure on the vastness
of its proud parent. Nokia is bigger than a breadbox, to say the least, and the
fact that it is the one bringing Wibree to the table gives the technology a strong
running start.

ABI's vision for the success of Wibree suggests that Nokia will begin forcing
Wibree into handsets at the soonest possible moment; that silicon vendors will
bring dual-mode devices to market at prices very close to those of Bluetooth
devices today; and that the adoption of these dual-mode gadgets will rise
quickly.

"In the beginning, you'll see a lot of dual-mode devices pumped into the
market," largely by Nokia, Carlaw says.

While Nokia can pump the market full of Wibree in the early days, analysts say
that initiative still may not be enough to ensure the technology's adoption over
the long haul. For that to happen, other handset vendors are going to have to
invest in Wibree's premise of lower power, smaller form factors and
intermittent usage. "It's not going to be enough for Nokia to do it alone,"
Carlaw says. "If other handset vendors don’t put it into their devices, it isn’t
going to fly."

Whether they put it into their devices or not could depend in large measure on
whether the new technology wins adoption by theBluetooth Special Interest
Group, or Bluetooth SIG. Acceptance by that governing body likely will be a
key deciding factor in the success or failure of Wibree.
That could take a while, Carlaw says. The Bluetooth SIG has a track record of
moving slowly in the adoption of changes.

While Nokia says its Wibree technology can fulfill a range of functions even
without tying itself to Bluetooth, it seems clear that the technology's best hopes
for uptake are to ride along with existing Bluetooth deployments. Carlaw notes
that some 600 million Bluetooth chipsets shipped in 2006. In the near future,
mobile TV, music and gaming all could implement Bluetooth uses, for example
in cordless MP3 headsets -- Carlaw points out that the latest game consoles PS3
and Wii are Bluetooth-enabled.

In the end, it may all come down to muscle. Will multiple handset makers
ultimately find themselves tempted by Wibree's capabilities? As the 800-pound
gorilla, Nokia has every reason to think they will.

Wibree, now known as Ultra Low Power Bluetooth saw its first working demo today. CSR, the chip manufacturer successfully demonstrated data
transfer between 2 dual mode bluetooth chips. The venue was a medical conference in Luxembourg.

The chips will be commercially available from this year itself. I hope to see a lot of cell phones are wrist watches with wibree technology in the
market. This would pave way to a whole new set of products are services.

Wibree is 50 times faster than Bluetooth and because of that reason itself, the power consumption drops. Also the protocol has been stripped
down of unnecessary overheads and tailor made to transfer short bursts of data. A single cell battery is expected to give a wibree product a
running time of 10 years.

Bluetooth uses a frequency hopping technology to avoid interference from other devices operating in the same frequency. Wibree does not use
frequency hopping.

Bluetooth uses fixed packet length. This increases power usage as unnecessary transmission occurs. Wibree has a variable packet length and
transmits only when necessary.

Bluetooth drains your cellphone battery as it needs quite a lot of power to remain active. Wibree aims to survive for a full year on a button sized
battery.
In contrast to bluetooth, wibree goes into sleep mode when not transmitting. In sleep mode the radio will be off and will save a lot of power.
Wibree devices wake up only when they want to transmit.

The major usage difference between wibree and bluetooth is the traffic characteristics. Bluetooth is useful when transferring files, using the
handsfree etc where the volume of data that needs to to transfered is considerable.

Wibree is used in areas where only short bursts of data needs to be transmitted. Remotes, sensor data etc.

Wibree has been renamed to ULP Bluetooth, ie Ultra Low Power Bluetooth. This change in name happened after the adoption of the technology by
Bluetooth SIG. From now on this short range wireless communication protocol will be a part of the bluetooth specifications.

The advantage of this adoption is the faster integration with existing bluetooth specs and products. We are expecting to see the first wibree
products in an year.
Wibree is a PAN (Personal Area Networking) technology

Zigbee is a mesh networking technology

Wibree is more power efficient

Zigbee has got more range

Wibree’s data transfer rate is 1 Mbps

Zigbees Data transfer rate is 250 Kbps

Wibree has got a star topology

Zigbee has got a mesh topology

Wibree uses bluetooth radio and can co-exist with bluetooth

Zigbee needs its own special radio and has got no relationship with bluetooth

Wibree technology has got special features to decrease the battery usage. The benchmark is to run a wibree device on coin sized battery for an
year without any recharge. The technology is such that the device will go in to sleep mode when not in use to save battery. The usage matches a
remote as it is not used continuously. The handset powers up only when a button is pressed.

The receiving end (TV) is AC powered. So the receiver section can be made very powerful even to detect the most feeble signal coming from the
remote. Better and bigger antenna designs can be used on the TV to improve the signal reception.
Moreover I can use my wibree mobile phone to control my TV by installing an additional software. Even a Wibree watch can be used for the same
purpose, but with a lesser range.

When compared to IRDA, wibree remotes can support more complex features like a two way communication, pre-programming certain channel
settings etc.

Nokia came up with the wibree idea and quite tactfully they merged with the bluetooth SIG. Their site even suggests some product ideas, like
watch, health monitor and some really fancy cool gadgets.

The initial impression was that wibree will eliminate bluetooth from the market. But with the merger of wibree with the bluetooth SIG, a smart
business idea, or rather a conspiracy emerges. Wibree is not going to be a bluetooth killer, instead it will kill every other sensor network
technology like zigbee and sunspot.

The advantages of wibree is that it has got more power efficiency and 4 times data transfer capacity. But Zigbee has got more range, and built in
mesh networking capabilities.

But Wibree shoots down all its competition by being compatible to bluetooth which is an accepted technology. Both uses the same radio and a
bluetooth device can be upgraded by a small firmware change.

Nokia is clever enough to see the opportunity, billions of phones and other devices exist worldwide with bluetooth technology. Everyone of us
carries a bluetooth phone. The world is bluetooth enabled. Nokia made a technology that is sensor network ready, upon the existing bluetooth
system.

This beautiful business idea is gonna kill every other sensor network technology for sure.

To be thinking positive, wibree and bluetooth will transform the way devices exchange information. Personal areas networking will get a real boost
from the wibree technology.

A cool new wibree product will be released with the launch of wibree devices. It will be a wibree enabled wrist watch, bluetooth and wibree
enabled mobile phone and bluetooth hands free.

With this product you will be come totally hands free. When a call comes the mobile will ring, but you dont have to take the mobile from your
pocket to know who is calling. The callers name and number will be scrolling on your wrist watch. Your mobile phone will send the data to
your wibreeenabled wrist watch.
Also your bluetooth handsfree will be standing by for your command to pick the call. If you press a button on your watch or your hands free the
call will be answered and you can talk freely.

The same technology is expected to replace in-car hands free systems also.