At least 30% of laptops being sold by The Notebook Company have Bluetooth capabilities, with this figure expected to rise as the technology improves and becomes cheaper, the company reports.
Christopher Riley, CEO of the Pretoria-based notebook and accessories retailer, says he expects the bulk of laptops to have Bluetooth in the next four years.
Riley says it potentially allows users to "communicate in a totally wireless environment. If it lives up to its promises, all devices currently connected by data cabling will be able to communicate wirelessly, within a few years".
But while the Danish technology`s proponents wax lyrical about its applications, the jury is out on whether Bluetooth will ever outgrow its current application as a cable replacement solution in handheld computing/communications devices, or as it is officially punted, a personal area network (PAN) technology.
What can you do with Bluetooth?
Wolfgang Held, a consultant for 3Com SA, a networking vendor, says users of Bluetooth devices can communicate between devices without cables, provided they have "the correct Bluetooth profiles".
"Say you have a notebook and a Palm or iPaq handheld, both with Bluetooth up and running. You can synchronise your handheld (e-mail, calendar and more) with your notebook, so long as you`re within the 10m range.
"Another application is to use a Bluetooth and GPRS phone (such as the Nokia 6310i) to dial to your office, to get e-mail or sync up calendars to your notebook. So the Bluetooth connection between devices means the computing device can make use of the connectivity ability of the comms device, for wider application than mere peer-to-peer synchronisation."
Another useful application is file sharing. Notebook users across a boardroom table can share fairly sizeable files comfortably without using cables or having to resort to infrared. "You could say Bluetooth as a cable-replacement technology is coming into its own," Held says.
"Similarly, you could use your Bluetooth notebook, within range of a Bluetooth printer, to print without connecting to any network other than the PAN," he says. "If the printer doesn`t have it, there are adapter kits out there."
Held cautions that in such a situation, if there are physical obstacles, one should reduce the 10m radius in order to maintain as closely as possible the 1Mbps data transfer rate.
What`s your profile?
He adds that the device-based functionality afforded by Bluetooth depends on the profile of the specific device, in turn dictated by the kind of device.
"You can normally do the above between the correct devices, even ad hoc file sharing, but remember that it was never meant for that, with the limited transfer rate. It doesn`t have the bandwidth of WiFi. The 1Mbps rate gives you a dedicated voice channel and effectively 700kbps in data, which is good for e-mail and dialling up, but not really for large files."
Held reflects that there is a tug of war for user mind share between the popular wireless technologies, namely GSM and GPRS, WiFi and Bluetooth. "WiFi has the high ground in terms of implementations at coffee shops and the like, because you can transparently (without setting up special profiles) replace normal network comms. With Bluetooth, you need, say, the same voice profile between phone and car kit.
"GSM and GPRS punt Web browsing, but there are costs associated, with the network operators offering various packages. Bluetooth fits in as the first leg of the journey. You need GPRS on the phone to connect, or a gateway, if you work via a Bluetooth access point, which 3Com doesn`t offer.
"I don`t know whether Bluetooth will ever go beyond its current applications, to do more than PAN networking. Certainly its use as cable replacement is not exhausted by a long shot - there are many more such devices that can benefit. And you will see more and more appliances with Bluetooth as we go along."
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