The Bluetooth Special Interest Group (SIG) will offer Bluetooth low- energy technology standards for mobile phones and consumer devices next spring, the association said in Taipei yesterday.
“Analysts expect Bluetooth low-energy technology to be integrated in a majority of mobile phones over the next five years, translating into 100 million mobile phones next year with an attach rate of 8 percent for complementary products,” Derek Soh (蘇國良), a marketing director for the Bluetooth SIG for Asia-Pacific and Japan, told a media briefing.
The efficiency of a new low- energy standard, as opposed to proprietary standards, will allow users to run Bluetooth on a button cell battery such as the CR2025 lithium coin battery for up to one year, Soh said.
The non-profit association said initial applications would include sports and fitness, watches or wrist devices and remote control.
The low-energy digital radio technology runs on media access control/physical layers (MAC/PHY), and does not include the whole spectrum offered by WiFi.
Bluetooth low-energy technology was developed by the Nokia Research Center under the code name Wibree, which was later merged with the Bluetooth SIG.
Currently, the top three markets for Bluetooth technology application are headphones, gaming and handsets in order of ranking.
The group has close to 12,000 members and more than 2 billion devices in the market. Members in the Asia-Pacific region last year included China, Taiwan and South Korea.
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