Bluetooth is back, getting bigger

Bluetooth-enabled mobile phone shipments will more than double this year, and the number of overall Bluetooth-enabled devices, including phones, stereo headphones, keyboards and other gear, is expected to increase from 316 million units in 2005 to 866 million in 2009, according to a new report from InStat.

Brian O'Rourke, senior analyst of converging markets and technologies at InStat, writes in the report, "Bluetooth 2005: The Future is Here," that mobile phones still represent the majority of devices equipped with Bluetooth technology, but that this will change with help of new standards, the exposure that increasing phone shipments are providing for Bluetooth, as well as chip prices that continue to fall.

In the next 12 to 18 months, more Bluetooth-enabled consumer electronics should appear, based on two standards announced within the last year by the Bluetooth Special Interest Group. The first spec will power a 3 Mb/s version of Bluetooth, representing a tripling of the technology's previous data rate, while the second standard, based on a collaboration with UltraWideband proponents, will allow for even higher speeds and other capabilities.