Wibree will become the low-powered Bluetooth

Stuart Corner
Wednesday, 13 June 2007 08:43

Business IT - Technology

Nokia added: "Several new companies, including device, watch and access systems manufacturers will join the finalisation of the specification. Once the specification is finalised, the technology will be made broadly available to the industry via the Bluetooth SIG.... The work of integrating the low power technology within the existing Bluetooth specification has begun and the first version of the specification is anticipated during first half of 2008."

Last November European bluetooth specialist, Ezurio, predicted that Wibree was set to become "the fastest growing wireless standard ever...Its symbiotic relationship with Bluetooth will open up massive opportunities for network operators to deploy new consumer based services, kick-starting the Consumer to Machine (C2M) market."

According to Ezurio, "The application that is crying out for Wibree is medical sensors for remote health and wellbeing monitoring. These include simple sensors such as weight scales, and more sophisticated ones such as blood pressure monitors and glucosimeters. It also has potential for safety devices, such as car airbags, which can use Wibree to transmit an emergency message through your phone, as well as applications in roadside information transmitters for intelligent traffic systems. In addition it can be used for sending content to your phone display, such as bus information from a transmitter at a bus stop."

Market researcher, ABI Research, earlier this year predicted a $US432 million, 809 million device industry for Wibree by 2012. Saying "We believe [Wibree] is a unique technology that can leverage the very positive market position of Bluetooth technology in segments such as medical, sports equipment and well-being, where the total available market is extremely large and still relatively untouched."