Bluetooth poised for a comeback

With CIOL Bureau inputs

AMSTERDAM: Anxious parents who fear their offspring will run off in the zoo can relax a little -- that is if they visit the Aalborg Zoo in Denmark which is set to rent out little radio tags to strap around a child's neck. For some three euros per radio tag the zoo gives parents peace of mind, using a short-range wireless connection called Bluetooth, Peter Lund, an executive at Denmark's BlueTags which has installed the system, said at a Bluetooth conference here.

According to analysts in Forrester group, there won't be enough people using Wi-Fi devices to support the operators that are currently introducing wireless local area networks (WLANs) and hot spots, which are places where wireless Web access is available to the public for a fee or for free. They predict a bright future for Bluetooth and expect 286 million Bluetooth-enabled devices in Europe by 2008.

If a child wanders out of sight, parents receive information about where it can be found via a text message to their mobile phone. If it leaves the zoo and goes outside the range of the Bluetooth base stations, parents are alerted automatically. The Aalborg Zoo implementation is one of several unexpected applications of Bluetooth, which in the 1990s was conceived by Sweden's Ericsson as a wireless cable replacement between mobile phones and peripherals such as headsets.

Bluetooth was given away almost for free by Ericsson to make it a standard, and has been embraced by hundreds of companies.

Despite innovative applications like the one in Denmark, the mass market future of Bluetooth still depends mostly on mobile phones, with some 70 million Bluetooth-equipped handsets expected to be sold this year compared with 20 million in 2002.

The car industry is one of the first to have recognized the possibilities of Bluetooth for hands-free calling and security services, backed up by legislation in many countries which outlaw use of a handheld phone while driving.

It is currently being designed and built into cars made by BMW, Saab, Toyota, Ford and DaimlerChrysler.

COMPLAINTS

When a driver gets into her car she does not need to put her phone in a cradle to hear the call on the speakers as the car automatically detects the phone. MP3 players and portable navigation systems on handheld computers also use the speakers and GPS location finders with Bluetooth.

'Bluetooth looks like the right way to get telematics into a car,' said Andreas Angsten at car entertainment equipment maker Clarion from Japan.

A Bluetooth connection set in a BMW costs some $15, while a control unit with GPS location finder adds around $100 to car entertainment systems. Angsten said handsfree calling systems and entertainment systems will become mass market next year.

The simplest Bluetooth chipsets are now sold for less than $5, which is still too high for some. Nokia this week unveiled a new 100 euro digital camera to snap onto a mobile phone without Bluetooth, citing the higher cost as an issue.

Then there is criticism from early users. Unlike the Danish zoo, most Bluetooth-capable devices have to be configured before they can be used. Complaints include headsets that fail to work with some mobile phones and opaque procedures to 'pair' devices.

'Also, the voice sound quality can be poor. The quality of the service should be much higher to meet the high value of a car,' said Magnus Osteberg at Sweden's Mecel AB that makes Bluetooth-enabled systems for Saab. BMW said that 90 percent of complaints are due to user unfriendliness of the system.

© Reuters