Competitors seek killer application for Bluetooth Low Energy

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 …

[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.

[Anonymous Coward]

Range

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

[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.

[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.

[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.

[Yet Another Anonymous coward]

obvious

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

[Anonymous Coward]

killer app

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

Instant iphone. :)

[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."