Sleepless in Seattle has been done. How about wireless?

The 'Can Bluetooth be cool?' campaign has been running for more than a month now. The original blog sparked off a great deal of dialogue.

Then the movie we created at the UK BiteBack event gave us unparalleled insight into the way real consumers are using Bluetooth, and their views on whether this is a cool technology, or not. Who would have thought that file-sharing was the golden application for Bluetooth, not handset to headset?

Taking the views of just one group in one geographical location is not a good idea, so I'm tremendously pleased that the Bluetooth SIG has invited us to re-stage BiteBack in Seattle. This is happening at a Halloween-themed night on Friday the 30th of October at the SEE Sound Lounge in Belltown, on Seattle's downtown waterfront. Once again, we will be taking the IncisorTV cameras to a busy music venue and talking to the people that actually buy and use the tech stuff that we spend every day trying to promote. And making a movie that will be available to view here at the www.incisor.tv site.

But it's time to move the project on. It really isn't my goal to simply learn about what people think about Bluetooth today. I want to start the process of improving awareness of Bluetooth's capabilities, and maybe even starting to make people think that wireless technology, and Bluetooth specifically at the moment, CAN be cool. So I'm talking to consumer electronics device companies such as Jabra, Sony Ericsson, Parrot, Plantronics etc, to see which of them is brave enough to get out there with me and start tackling the challenge. To sit with the people in Seattle and talk to them about why they should be doing more with Bluetooth than just sharing music tracks.

Following the first BiteBack event/movie, people at these companies are readily acknowledging that boosting Bluetooth so that everybody makes it a 'must have' feature is what they need to do. But it is like the elephant in the room - you can't ignore the fact that it is there, but do you want to try to shift it? Over the next couple of weeks, I'll find out how many visionaries there are left out there. The Bluetooth SIG has stepped up to the plate and is supporting BiteBack Seattle. Who else will be there, with Mike Foley and myself, telling the Bluetooth story to Seattle's young and beautiful?

This is going to be one interesting event! And one which any reader of this blog is more than welcome to come along to.

Why does Bluetooth still not work the way it should?

Anybody who knows me knows that I have been a supporter and promoter of Bluetooth technology since it first started to poke its head above the parapet, way back in 1998. But there is an elephant in my room, and its tusks are blue! Despite all the good work that the Bluetooth SIG and all its responsible member companies have done, it is still the case that Bluetooth phones, headsets etc sometimes don't work the way they should.

Example - I use a Nokia N96 with a Jabra JX20 headset - both high-end products from respected companies. The two are paired and work OK on first connection. But, if I go out of range, or switch the headset off for some reason, they then will not reconnect. I have to switch the headset off and re-boot the phone. In a given day this can happen several times. Most frustrating.

After 11 years of Bluetooth development, and with two products from a couple of the most respected manufacturers, this really shouldn't be happening. And this isn't isolated. A lot of kit passes through our hands, and similar things happen all the time. I'm in the industry, so I keep using this kit, but what will consumers be thinking?

I've put the question to the wireless community, and Peter Hauser, CEO of The Quality Factory came back with these observations?

I'm surprised nobody is willing to comment here!

Your question: "Why does Bluetooth still not work the way it should?" is more a question about "Quality" than it is about "Conformance to the Bluetooth standard" and therein lies the problem...

First of-all, there will always be a struggle between innovation and conformance to a standard. Every company wants, and needs to innovate. This implies that every company seeks to use the standards in new and interesting ways, and when they do, they make "assumptions" as to how other, compatible products, will react, thus creating the first problem...

For instance, the Bluetooth standards speak little about timing tolerances for commands and responses (beyond the standard timeouts). Some devices can respond very quickly to a command, while others cannot. If, however, a device is EXPECTING a delayed response and instead receives a very rapid one, if the firmware is intolerant, it could cause the device to lock-up.

Also - the Bluetooth standards do not currently address most multi-profile scenarios. It is only recently that the common "HFP, HSP, A2DP, and AVRCP" in a single device scenario was examined more closely for integration into the specifications AND the play/pause behavior (you know, where Play means Play, and Pause means Pause) has changed between the whitepaper and the specifications.

In short, unless companies are willing to invest in clarifying and standardizing their assumptions, these types of problems will continue.

And then, there's the issue of QUALITY.

With Bluetooth technology's pull towards commoditization, this complex technology is now in the hands of implementers who don't understand its intricacies and are building products based on new assumptions. Couple that with reduced development budgets for commodity products, and you have all of the makings of a reduction in product quality.

Teams are no longer "expected" to attend such events as UPF and to conduct extensive interoperability tests. Instead, they are expected to keep development budgets as low as possible.

All the while, new platforms are opening-up APIs that enable 3rd party applications to affect the Bluetooth performance. For instance, a mobile phone may have three separate music players on it. If one of those music players interacts with the Bluetooth A2DP/AVRCP (music) stack in an unexpected fashion, it could damage otherwise solid interoperability with wireless stereo headsets.

So - I guess the answer to your very simple question is quite complex.

If companies are going to do a really good job making their solutions "work" in the real world, they need to take the time to understand the assumptions made by products that already exist in the marketplace (of which there are many), find the similarities in these assumptions, and design accordingly.

Then, they need to TEST, TEST, and TEST again.

Thanks, Peter. Other contributions on this topic are very welcome. In the meantime, I may just have to change my own gadgets on a more often basis to check whether this situation is getting better, or worse.

After all, a Nokia N96 has been around for quite a while now ....

Incisor unites the WPAN factions!

We've just published the March issue of Incisor, which includes the second appearance of the Incisor WPANel. This is an group of executives brought together my Incisor to comment on topical issue within the Short Range wireless industry.

We've got all of the number one spokespersons for the various WPAN technology organisations - Mike Foley, exec director of the Bluetooth SIG, Erich Kamperschroer, chairman of the DECT Forum, Graham Martin, chairman of the EnOcean Alliance, Edgar Figueroa, executive director of the Wi-Fi Alliance, Stephen Wood, president of the WiMedia Alliance, and Bob Heile, chairman of the ZigBee Alliance.

I could be wrong, but I think this is the first time all of these guys have been brought together in this way - half the time they are at war with each other!

I think this is a great initiative and plan to develop the WPANel concept over the coming months. Anyone with any ideas as to how we could nurture the WPANel, and ways in which it could contribute, send me an email at vholton@incisor.tv