After years of hype, Bluetooth has finally made it to market at a decent price and in decent volumes.
Last year saw a battle between chipset manufacturers to create a
single Bluetooth-on-a-chip die at volume prices of $3 or less.
Cambridge Silicon Radio got there first, and now the floodgates have opened.
However, prices are still relatively high. Toshiba's SD Bluetooth card, for example, retails at £129, and early Ericsson mobile phone headsets cost up to £200.
These prices will decline over time, but the specialist nature of most
Bluetooth adapters means that prices will stay relatively high. A standard interface usually leads to lower prices. For example, D-Link will shortly launch a USB Bluetooth adapter retailing at £35.
However, all the hype and high prices have contributed to a certain amount of reticence among users.
Applications centred around PDAs
At present there are two main applications, and both are centred around PDAs. First is the Lan access model - connecting to a Lan through access points using Bluetooth equipped PDAs. Second is PDA to mobile phone connections, especially in businesses that issue standard phones for employees.
We tested two PDAs - Palm's high-end M515 device with a Toshiba Bluetooth SD card, and a Compaq iPaq H3870 with built-in Bluetooth functionality, running PocketPC 2002. These connected to a Red-M 1050AP Bluetooth access point.
Red-M is one of three spin-offs from Madge Networks, a former champion of Token Ring networking. Red-M makes a range of access points - the 1050AP is the middle of the three. Setup on the Red-M access point was simple. If you have DHCP running on your network, you will need to use the supplied software and a Windows '98 or better machine to find the AP, but if your network is a little more basic, the AP defaults to a pre-arranged IP after two minutes.
Configuration is easily managed through a browser interface which can be used to manage a large number of the APs at the same time.
Red-M recommends placing the access points as high as possible - preferably in a false ceiling if you have one. This raises a couple of issues. First, the power supply lead is pretty long, but certainly not long enough to position an AP in the middle of the ceiling of a fairly large office. Second, if your cable runs go through the floor, getting a piece of Cat 5 to the ceiling may well be a pain in the neck.
Our's sat on top of a desk partition, but still managed to get a decent connection as far as 25 feet away, although nipping round a corner chopped off the connection. A fairly large office may need several access points.
On the client side, the Palm and iPaq had good points, but neither seemed to be quite there yet. Palm's advantage lies in a huge software base and modularity - Bluetooth connectivity is provided through an SD card, which you do not have to tweak to get running once the initial drivers are installed.
The number of applications developed for the Palm platform is huge, but it is worth noting that the transition to Palm OS 5, scheduled over the next two years, will cause problems. Although it will be possible to run old apps on the new operating system, most applications use hacks on the old OS.
That said, people are familiar with the Palm platform, and love it. It remains one of the best designed GUIs around, and applications are simple and straightforward.
However, there were problems. The M515's colour screen is fantastic, but backlighting it brightly sucks life out of the battery. Another guzzler, of course, is the Bluetooth card.
On top of this, our machine came with MultiMail SE, which is a handy POP and IMAP mail client, but prone to hangs on disconnection. This seemed to happen whether we were connecting using the Red-M AP or a standard GSM phone over Infrared.
The iPaq didn't fare much better. As someone who uses Windows as little as possible, I had a few initial problems, but was pleasantly surprised at how easy it was to use and how easy it was to turn Bluetooth functionality on and off.
Serious thought must have gone into saving battery time by disabling Bluetooth when it is not needed. However, reconnection to the access point proved difficult - nipping downstairs caused a network failure on the iPaq, and reconnecting was a complete nightmare.
Once it was up and running though, the iPaq was pretty handy, even if Pocket Explorer thought it was running on a 1024x768 screen. That said, getting a properly rendered page, albeit with plenty of scrolling required, was a boon.
Being a long-term Palm fan, I was not expecting to be bowled over by the iPaq, but I must admit that the combination of a large colour screen and a network connection was a real eye opener.
Real world performance did not seem to be breathtaking - the GUI was just as slow, and applications just as prone to irritating delays as the Palm.
This is partly down to the fact that the software is designed to take the more powerful ARM 206mhz processor into account - rather like comparing a 386 running Windows 3.1 with a Windows 98 PC. Not necessarily faster to the naked eye, but a lot more gets done behind the scenes.
Network connectivity
That said, network connectivity transforms both platforms. Bluetooth is something that has to be tried in order to see the benefits.
Expect a slew of ports from ISVs aping SAP's mySAP client for the Palm, as well as a range of innovative network apps designed around what a palmtop can provide over and above a laptop or desktop.
Choosing which platform to use is also a thorny issue. Palm achieves a lot with little processing power, and the enormous amount of third party apps out there make it enticing. However, up and coming changes
to the OS will make things tricky and the potentially massive benefits of Palm's purchase of software house Be's code base won't be seen until 2005 at the earliest. Be designed and built an exceptional POSIX compliant operating system with a good GUI and superb performance (not to mention support for 64-bit file systems and other assorted goodies).
However, the iPaq is a stunning platform. It has the support of a variety of hardware vendors, HP and Compaq included, although it will be interesting to see what happens now the two have merged.
Microsoft, will be making life easier for PC users with closer integration - PocketPC will reach the parts other palmtop OSes
cannot, simply because of all of those proprietary hooks.
In short, it is worth trying out Bluetooth and the more savvy employees out there may already be checking their private email using a phone and PDA linked with the technology.
It might have been a time coming, but Bluetooth is finally showing up with the goods.
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Product details
Product Palm M515
Pros Good screen, simple to use, good range of applications
Cons Poor battery life when using Bluetooth or backlight, prone to hang on disconnection from mail client
Price £288 ex VAT, Bluetooth SD card £112 ex VAT
Contact Palm 01189 278700
www.palm.com
Product Red-M 1050AP
Pros Simple to set up, configuration managed through a simple browser interface
Cons Power supply lead not long enough
Price £339 ex VAT
Contact01628 819700
www.red-m.com
ProductCompaq iPaq H3870
Pros Easy to turn off Bluetooth and save battery lifeCons Difficult to reconnect to the access point
Price £499 inc VAT
Contact 0845 270 4222
www.compaq.com
