[opendtv] TVs turn on as Apple, Nordic join Bluetooth
- From: "Manfredi, Albert E" <albert.e.manfredi@xxxxxxxxxx>
- To: "opendtv@xxxxxxxxxxxxx" <opendtv@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Tue, 21 Jun 2011 17:52:03 -0500
http://www.eetimes.com/electronics-news/4217125/Apple-Nordic-join-Bluetooth-board
TVs turn on as Apple, Nordic join Bluetooth
Rick Merritt
6/21/2011 12:01 PM EDT
SAN JOSE, Calif. - Apple and Nordic Semiconductor have joined the board of
directors of the Bluetooth Special Interest Group. The companies expand the
clout of the group at a time when Bluetooth is edging into TVs and medical gear.
As many as five million Bluetooth-enabled devices currently ship each day, a
figure the group hope swells to 14 million a day in 2015. One of the big growth
areas on the near-term horizon is the television.
The group hopes by early next year its 4.0 spec gets adopted by many TV makers
for multiple uses including remote controls, 3-D glasses, streaming music and
sharing photos and videos. "Our entry into the living room will be through the
TV," said Michael Foley, executive director of the Bluetooth SIG in a press
briefing.
LG, Samsung and Vizio already ship TVs using Bluetooth remote controls based on
proprietary software profiles. The SIG aims to finish standard profiles for
remote controls and 3-D glasses by this fall to enable a broader set of
products.
The Zigbee-based "RF4CE has probably received more public attention [than
Bluetooth for remote controls], but there hasn't been a huge number of [RF4CE]
products shipped," said Foley. "People are finding some of interference, cost
and other limitations [with RF4CE] and suddenly looking at Bluetooth 4.0," he
said.
"It's not just a one-trick pony, it allows all these other use cases and the
silicon will scale Moore's Law faster and become cheaper quicker" than Zigbee
given the volumes of Bluetooth sales, Foley added.
Meanwhile the group has put on the back burner a decision about adopting a
high-speed physical layer transport. It started a study group looking at
competing 60 GHz technologies more than a year ago.
"There's been some looking at [the issues], but no spec work and no decision
whether [60 GHz is] a good thing to do or not," said Foley.
"Right now we are executing on strategy for trying to penetrate these new
markets [by getting] dual-mode Bluetooth 4.0 chips in mobile phones, PCs,
tablets and TVs and need the need to be a platform with APIs for them," he said.
Bluetooth is increasingly competing with a host of established and emerging low
power, short range wireless technologies. They include near field
communications, Zigbee Smart Energy Profile, low power versions of Wi-Fi and
proprietary approaches such as a new ultrasound technique described by one
startup on Monday.
"We see the importance of platform development and ultra-low power sensor
silicon for Bluetooth and believe guidance and board participation from Apple
and Nordic is essential," said Foley, speaking in a press statement.
"We have set the ambitious goal of shipping five billion devices in 2015,"
Foley said. "These additions to our board will ensure we succeed in new markets
we have targeted for growth," he added.
The Bluetooth group described a shift ahead as mobile devices-including
cars--serve as hub devices that capture data from small sensors monitoring
everything from footsteps, heart rate activity, blood pressure and sugar levels
to house temperature and energy use. Insights from Apple on platform
development and Nordic for sensor silicon demands will help the group navigate
that shift, it said.
The new Bluetooth board members are Svein-Egil Nielsen, a vice president of
emerging technologies and strategic partnerships at Nordic, and Brian Tucker, a
senior iOS software engineering manager at Apple.
Nordic offers a variety of short range wireless chips from 433 MHz to 2.4 GHz,
including ones using the ANT+ standard and Bluetooth Low Energy. "Bluetooth
technology has been the main R&D focus at Nordic for the last six years and we
are now in a position to enable new and exciting products for consumers," said
Svenn-Tore Larsen, CEO Nordic in the press statement.
Apple and Nordic's two-year appointments were agreed upon by unanimous vote of
the current board of directors and will officially begin on July 1, 2011. They
join existing board members from Intel, Motorola, Lenovo, Nokia, Microsoft,
Ericsson AB and Toshiba.
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