The future of
Bluetooth happen by WiFi? To
meet the needs in the
ever-growing flow of users, the
Bluetooth SIG, who presides over
the destiny of this
technology, has announced its
intention to integrate the WiFi
802.11 at its standard wireless
transmission. This decision
should lead to the development
of chips and devices with both
the potential of WiFi in terms
of bandwidth and functionality
and services specific to
Bluetooth.
It was previously agreed that
the next evolution of Bluetooth
would benefit from closer ties
with the standard UWB
(Ultra-Wideband). Last November,
the Bluetooth SIG, however, had
hypothesized to use the WiFi
rather than UWB insofar as the
latter technology is not yet
mature enough.
Many devices, from cell phones
to laptop computers, today
derive from these two
technologies, but still use two
chips and two communication
protocols standards.The decision
to bring Bluetooth to the 802.11
standard would therefore the
development of hybrid chips,
which are able to use the WiFi
for large transfers of data and
then pass on Bluetooth for
short-range transmissions.Less
expensive than the manufacture
of two separate chips, the
hybrid would provide a further
reduction of energy consumption.