A wireless barbecue, a helmet that tells onlookers how hard you hit your head and a bicycle speedometer - makes one wonder how we survived without Bluetooth Low Energy. Those are three of the nine finalists in the Bluetooth Innovation World Cup, which this year is searching for a killer application that will make everyone dash …

COMMENTS

House rules Send corrections

This topic is closed for new posts.

Tuesday 2nd November 2010 17:13 GMT Anonymous Coward

I bought a Bluetooth adapter for my HTPC

...and now it's sitting in a drawer because there really just wasn't much of a use for it. Yes, with enough f'ing around I got a Wii controller working for it... for a little bit... but there was just no compelling reason to keep it as the wireless keyboard and mouse work off their own connection-type and the Bluetooth variants of those devices cost 4x more.

It's a neat technology, but as the article indicates... beyond the Bluetooth headset for my cell I really just don't see much use for it. I'm sure it could replace all sorts of *EXISTING* wires, IR, and proprietary RF connections but someone needs to make those peripherals... and most importantly make them at a somewhat reasonable price point.

0 0
Tuesday 2nd November 2010 22:13 GMT Anonymous Coward

Range

Sigh. Range is not limited to 10m. Try 50m or more.

0 0
1. Wednesday 3rd November 2010 11:33 GMT Anonymous Coward
  
  sigh ...
  
  Actually it depends on the class of bluetooth device you're referring to. If you can find many common (headsets, mice, keyboards, etc) devices with a relatively low cost that are class 1 and therefore have a range of significantly more than 10 metres I'd be surprised.
  
  0 0
  1. Wednesday 3rd November 2010 15:38 GMT Anonymous Coward
    
    Re: sigh ...
    
    The article isn't talking about Bluetooth, it's talking about Bluetooth low energy. So no, there is no class 1/2/3, and yes it will do more than 10m.
    
    0 0
Tuesday 2nd November 2010 22:27 GMT Al 4

Star Trek monitoring

Actually Bluetooth sensors in the hospital makes sense these days, at least in the last hospital I stayed in about 3 years ago since each patient had a tablet PC outside their room that was used to record patient information on instead of a tablet of paper charts. It would allow them to do better monitoring (i.e. continuous) and catch subtle changes that could occur and possibly be missed if things are only recorded when a nurse takes the measurements.

0 0
Tuesday 2nd November 2010 22:28 GMT Yet Another Anonymous coward

obvious

What about a device that tells you where your bluetooth headset is?

0 0
Tuesday 2nd November 2010 23:41 GMT Anonymous Coward

killer app

very low power networking to a 3g/2g device which piggy-backs on an ipod touch.

Instant iphone. :)

0 0
Wednesday 3rd November 2010 09:36 GMT Adam Williamson 1

Key fob multimeter? Awesome

"In the Home Automation section, we have an electricians' multimeter in a key fob"

I'd definitely buy that. I'm no kind of EE but a key fob multimeter (presumably the bluetooth bit is that it connects to your phone for the actual display, or something) sounds like just about the sweet spot for someone like me who, every six months or so, thinks "hmm, I could kinda do with a multimeter right now, but I guess I'll work around it."

0 0