The Bluetooth price is right - or is it???

This story was published in the February 2010 issue of Incisor, and has already generated a number of email comments. A worthy contender then for putting up here in public forum. Please feel free to comment as you see fit.

Is Bluetooth pricing restricting the market?

Does your jaw ever drop at the price you are being expected to pay for things? Mine does, and especially because prices for consumer goods, ranging from a pint of milk, to a TV, to a car, seem to march unstoppably upwards, while my income has been static or falling for as long as I can remember (cue tears, please).

Like most guys, I have been a car nut for most of my life, and so one of the bellwethers for my assessment of pricing policies has been the price I have to pay for my cars. This is an area of stunning disparities. From the February 2010 issue of Car magazine, which I have read for more than 20 years and whose editorial standards I have always hoped to emulate, I see that BMW thinks it is acceptable to ask me to pay £33,000 for a Mini John Cooper Works 50. £33,000!!! That is about $53,450 for our American readers. Now, most of you will know that BMW’s Mini is a modern interpretation of a very, very small car designed in the Sixties by Alec Issigonis. It was a hugely successful, classless, spacious (for its size) and inexpensive mode of transport and occupied a sector of the market currently occupied by cars like the Suzuki Swift, Toyota Yaris, all of which have list prices that start below £10,000. Where does the other £23,000 go, BMW?

The modern Mini is still built in the UK, takes up a bit more space on the road, and has a few more gizmos than the original car, but $53,000!!! For the same price in the USA you can buy a brand new BMW 528i from a BMW dealer. How can that be? The 5-Series is two and half times as big as the Mini, has about the same multiplier more materials in it, and massively outscores the Mini for on-board technology.
And how can it be that a few pages after the report on the stupidly-priced Mini, there is a full page advert from Chrysler for the 300C, a massive, stately-looking car that has been built in the USA and shipped to the UK, and yet is being offered by the manufacturer (not, note, a discounting dealer) for a list price of £23,995 - £10,000 less than the built in the UK Mini. Again, the 300C is a full size saloon car with a leather interior, dual-zone climate control, Sat Nav, MP3 and so on. It has established a place in our market as a bit of a poor(-ish) man’s Bentley. How does this pricing thing work?

And don’t start me on the fact that Britain’s GM outpost – Vauxhall , provider of basic transport to sales reps for as long as the sun has been rising – now charges £22,000 ($35,640) for a 1.7 litre Diesel-engined Astra. The Astra, for those that don’t know it, is a small hatchback. And Volvo wants us to pay £39,000 for an electric C30, which is no over-blown SUV, but another small hatchback.

What? I say again – what????

So here’s the point
And why on earth am I raving about this in Incisor (finally, you say, he gets to the point)? Well, it is because for the last few months I have been travelling the world talking to consumers about Bluetooth. Let us set aside just for this minute any issues over set-up, interoperability, ergonomics, and even fashion. Overall, with later Bluetooth silicon now populating the devices that consumers are buying, that situation is improving. However, one message that has been universal and which continues to be heard as loudly as ever has been that consumers want Bluetooth to be cheaper than it is. And you can see their point. Let’s pick a good quality Bluetooth headset – the Jawbone Prime, for example. That sells for £99 at my local Apple store. A Plantronics Voyager PRO sells for £81. Go for a bit of luxury and a Bang & Olufsen EarSet 2 sells for £200 here in the UK and $350 in the US! The B&O example may be a bit extreme, as the company has a long-established reputation for selling beautifully styled, technically competent but ridiculously over-priced gear, but the others are examples of good quality Bluetooth headsets of the type that provide the sort of Bluetooth experience we would like consumers to have. The sort of experience that does away with a lot of the set-up, interoperability, ergonomic, and fashion issues that have littered Bluetooth’s path to greatness.

Some would say that £99 for the Jawbone is not a lot of money, and if you work in sales and marketing in the electronics industry you probably spend your life justifying the cost of the devices your company produces. But put yourself in the place of the average, over-stretched consumer. They look at what is unarguably a very small piece of electronic equipment. And then they look at the price tag. Then they mentally put this piece of gizmo-wizardly alongside the 15” flat panel HD TV with built-in Freeview tuner that they can but for £109 from a top UK electronics retailer. And they wonder why the teeny-weeny Bluetooth headset costs 88% of what the TV costs. Or a full-size refrigerator also at £109, or why the little headset costs more than half of what they can buy a Nintendo Wii for.

Stick with technology gadgets and it’s easy to find latest technology 802.11n Wi-Fi Access points from big name companies such as D-Link and Netgear, claiming 300Mbps throughput, MiMo technology and physically consisting of damned big cases presumably containing lots of components, and selling for considerably less than those Bluetooth headsets - £60 - 80.

If we face the harsh truth, some of these are items a consumer will desire more than a Bluetooth headset, and some he or she will undoubtedly need more. These items also score higher on the basis of perceived value – or at least kilogram’s of tech per buck!

As ever, it is a tough call for the Bluetooth headset company that has poured millions into developing its products and would like to see a return on the investment. But it is more than just the headset companies that are delivering consumers the same conundrum. If you spec a BMW for ‘Bluetooth phone preparation’ the cost is £535. Audi’s ‘Mobile Phone Preparation’ is £525. Gulp!

Sometimes, a little knowledge is a depressing thing
Having worked in the electronics and technology industry for most of my life, I’ve had a semi-privileged insight into what consumer electronics products cost to make. This has caused me to furrow my brow on a regular basis when faced with a retail price that seems to bear little or no relation to the BOM cost for a particular item I am contemplating purchasing. Maintaining my relentless and probably unfair focus on the poor old Bluetooth headset, I’m aware that most of the volume manufacturers will be paying between $1-2 for their Bluetooth 2.1 silicon. Take the middle of that range and it is about £0.92p in real money. Then there is a tiny pcb, a few other components and a plastic casing. I’m ready to be deluged with better-informed estimates, but where does that put us for a total BOM cost for that £88 headset? £5? £6? Go crazy and say £10? My guess is it is nearer the lower estimate.

I sympathise with both the consumer and with the manufacturer. The consumer really struggles to know how a tiny (and if we are honest, many are cheap-looking) electronic device, which most people will feel is an item of desire rather than need, can cost so much money? The poor manufacturers, still excited by the potential size of the Bluetooth market, wonder why sales aren’t higher? They will argue that when volumes grow, so prices will come down. But volumes have grown, and Bluetooth headsets have been around for approaching ten years now, yet still a quality Bluetooth headset sells for £50 – 80.

True, there are cheaper Bluetooth headsets out there, including some perfectly good ones. But at the lower end there are still plenty of truly awful products, and consumers aren’t really positioned to tell which cheap Bluetooth headsets are worth buying, and which will cause a lifetime of hassle and poor performance to rain down upon them. These are the types of headset that are prolonging the negativity that impacts on Bluetooth’s overall growth potential.

There is no magic wand solution. As time goes by, early-generation Bluetooth headsets will finally be cleared from retailer’s shelves. Later spec products will find their way into the hands of consumers, and the way will be clear for Bluetooth to finally become loved by consumers. In the meantime, manufacturers will continue to hold out with high prices for their Bluetooth headsets, and consumers will ask themselves: a Bluetooth headset or a TV/dishwasher/games console for the same-ish money? And the way this decision goes will not be hard to predict.

Thus, one reason why headset sales aren’t higher will continue to be reasonably easy to identify.

And we haven’t even touched upon stereo headsets ....

What the Bluetooth industry needs now ....

Incisor interview:

Vince Holton meets with Henri Seydoux, founder and CEO of Parrot S.A.


Well, we will come to what the Bluetooth industry needs shortly. Meanwhile, for those Incisor readers that don’t know Parrot, and there are not likely to be many of you, the French company has been deeply involved in embedding Bluetooth in consumer electronics devices since the very early days of the short range wireless technology. The company was founded by Henri Seydoux, and he and I both struggled to think how many years it has been since Incisor first met with Parrot in a hotel meeting room in London – we decided it was way back in 2001. Parrot has gone on to launch a range of Bluetooth-enabled products across the automotive and general consumer electronics industries.

Time, then, that we met up again, and took the opportunity to compare notes on the state of the industry, likely directions and trends. And, it turned out, for Seydoux to make an impassioned plea to the industry to take one step that would make life easier for people on both sides of the fence – developers and CE companies, and also the vast consumer market that they serve and rely upon for their existence. But more of that later.

Seydoux started the conversation by re-stating his company’s backbone philosophy, which is to re-develop classic products using today’s technology. Seydoux explained: “We are not interested in competing in me-too markets, or trying to be the lowest cost variation of a product. I have always looked at product development from the perspective of ‘what can be improved by going wireless?”

Parrot’s roots were in voice recognition – hence the name – and over the past eight years Bluetooth has since been combined with improvements in speech recognition. Parrot’s first success with Bluetooth was in the area of the car phone, and this has remained an important market for the company. According to Seydoux, Bluetooth gave Parrot the opportunity to re-invent the carphone, and to revitalise the whole carphone market.

Seydoux explained that from this platform, Parrot has looked at ways to use wireless to transform products. “As an example, I think that Bluetooth speaker systems can be very successful, and if they are going to be used in the home they have to be good speakers. Our Zikmu speakers, which were designed by Philippe Starck, are a good example. If you look at the basic design it harks back to the speaker device attached to the phonograph in the original HMV logo! The speaker itself is the static element in the music ecosystem today. Everything else is mobile – the music, the MP3 player or iPod, the laptop as a music storage device, and of course the Internet provides endless music streaming opportunities. So, to maintain the mobility, the speaker needs to be wireless, and therefore Bluetooth was a fundamental element of the design concept for the Zikmu speaker. It’s great to be able to come into your home with your laptop or iPod, just press play, and enjoy your music. This is how it should be.”

Seydoux believes that the world is ready for, and now wants wireless. His aim, he says, is not to reinvent the wheel, but to make things easier. Fortunately, Bluetooth is now part of most cellphones. “Most of the technology that has been developed around cellphones is transferable. The TV, PC and cellphone are all content sources, but you are unlikely to turn them on to look at your digital photos, for example,” explained Seydoux. “The digital photo market is enormous – the cameraphone has revolutionised the market and we now all take hundreds or even thousands of digital photos. They are a record of your life, a digital diary, but sadly, the vast majority remain on the cellphone or perhaps get transferred to a PC and archived, but never viewed. I am sure that we all value these images and would like to do more with them.”

Parrot pioneered wireless photo frames to make it simpler to transfer these souvenirs of our lives from the cameraphone onto a device that will allow us all to view them at any time. Although this is still an emerging market, and not one that has yet generated huge income, it is one that Parrot is committed to, as Seydoux explained. “We will launch a radically different product into this sector during November. This product, which saw us once again collaborate with a world-renowned designer, will introduce new technology to the photo frame concept. This is in line with our philosophy – we don’t want to compete in the low-cost part of the market, we want to produce the best products.”

Seydoux added that following November’s photo frame launch, Parrot is working towards a major launch at CES, one which, according to Seydoux “will bring to market a product that couldn’t be more wireless!” For now, this will have to be a mystery and a teaser to encourage us to book our flights for Las Vegas.


Time for the industry to listen

But I mentioned at the outset that Seydoux took the occasion of our meeting to provide him with an opportunity to broadcast to the industry something that he feels very strongly about. Now is the time for the reveal.

So, what message does this industry guru wish to distribute? Seydoux explained: “I want to reach out via Incisor because you go everywhere and to all of the developers and R&D labs in the industry. My message is - combine NFC and Bluetooth!”

Now, it is written in stone that for any technology to succeed in the consumer marketplace, ease of use is all important. It is also generally accepted that despite all good intentions and many years of work by men with beards and corduroy trousers, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth set-up is too hard for non-technical people and that circumstances – e.g. you are in a public place, a cafe, even at home/wherever - make it even harder. Seydoux explained that Parrot is aware that this is so across the range of products that it sells. “NFC is the obvious answer. Handsets need NFC. It is cheap to implement, but it is not being deployed. NFC could massively improve the ease of use situation for consumers using Bluetooth and other wireless technologies.”

Seydoux cited one example scenario – your car’s Bluetooth system. “It’s OK to set it up in your own car as you typically only do it once, but what happens when you are travelling and you hire a car? You’ll typically want to jump in the car and drive off – you don’t want to be spending time trying to pair your phone with the hire car. Bluetooth and NFC would allow you to touch your phone to a place on the dashboard, and this would be the way to simply connect your phone with the car’s audio system to enable handsfree – and therefore legal – calling in the car. Plus, and for many this is just as important, to allow you to listen to your own music in the hire car. One-touch simple pairing with NFC would have you paired in a moment.”

Another example is in the overall music sector. Sharing files is very popular, and more and more people are connecting their iPods and MP3 players to portable speaker systems, to their home stereo systems, their cars etc. “Look at just the file-sharing aspect for now – there are too many steps to go through and it is too difficult for many people to work out how to do this on an ad hoc basis. The music sharing application on its own would be enough to justify the implementation of Bluetooth simple pairing by NFC – just imagine how easy it would be to share music in bars, while on an airplane, and of course between your portable media player and your home systems.”

It must be said that this is true for all use cases. Very often the theoretical convenience – the magic, in fact - of a wireless link is being squandered. NFC would solve it, says Seydoux, as there is no software to download, the wireless link works well and is robust and efficient. And it could all happen very quickly, as a clearly frustrated Seydoux observed: “One day, one of the phone companies will make the decision to do this. It could be as simple as Apple deciding to implement NFC. If Apple does, everyone will follow – Nokia, Samsung, LG etc. The reality is that there is no reason why they couldn’t all do it now.”

As Incisor readers will know, we have been following NFC for some time, and the problem – and it may not be seen as a problem by the NFC community - seems to be that NFC is being developed as a payment protocol, and a smart card/SIM replacement. This is of course a good use for NFC, but it is hard to deploy and is therefore taking a long time to become widely used.

Seydoux conceded that some positive steps are being taken. “Wi-Fi Protected Set-Up (WPS) is heading in the right direction. Although not as simple as a one-touch NFC pairing, there is no configuration or password needed, you just press buttons on both the phone and access point. Wi-Fi Direct now continues the process of making Wi-Fi easier to use. For Bluetooth, this type of simple connectivity is even more important than for Wi-Fi because Bluetooth’s applications are much broader and you want to connect many more different types of device.”

There was absolutely no doubt in my mind that this was a topic that Henri Seydoux felt very strongly about. We will let Parrot’s top man close this piece by re-stating his call to action to the WPAN industry: “It is completely obvious that Bluetooth + NFC should become a standardised solution. If Bluetooth and NFC are still looking for their killer app, then combining the two could make it happen for both of them. Bluetooth + NFC will remove the need for any complex pairing process and both technologies would sell more chips and consumers would come to love the technology. This could all happen if there wasn’t so much focus on using NFC for payment systems.”


www.parrot.com

Wi-Fi Direct – a flash in the WPAN?

By Vince Holton


Stand back, everybody, the apple cart is in the process of being upturned again. In a move that some observers have suggested threatens Bluetooth’s hold on the WPAN market, the Wi-Fi Alliance tells us it is developing a new version of its spec that will allow Wi-Fi devices to connect in a simpler way. The new specification, which the Wi-Fi Alliance says is ‘nearing completion’ (gestation period akin to ‘.11n, guys?), will enable Wi-Fi devices to connect to one another without joining a traditional home, office, or hotspot network.

The Wi-Fi Alliance expects to begin certification for this new specification in mid-2010, well, I guess we will see, and products which achieve the certification will be designated Wi-Fi certified Wi-Fi Direct.

The specification, previously code-named "Wi-Fi peer-to-peer," can apparently be implemented in any Wi-Fi device, including mobile phones, cameras, printers, notebook computers, plus human interface devices such as keyboards and headphones. Devices that have been certified to the new specification will also be able to create connections with Wi-Fi certified legacy devices already in use. Devices will be able to make a one-to-one connection, or a group of several devices can connect simultaneously.

The spec is apparently aimed at consumer electronics and enterprise applications, provides management features for enterprise environments and includes WPA2 security. Devices that support the specification will be able to discover one another and advertise available services, and some commentators suggest that you will be able to do away with the need to use Wi-Fi routers in some places. Wi-Fi Direct devices will support typical Wi-Fi ranges and the same data rates as can be achieved with an infrastructure connection, according to the Wi-Fi Alliance, which plans to publish its peer-to-peer specification upon completion. Only Wi-Fi Alliance member companies will be able to certify devices to the new specification.

A view from the bridge
As I said at the top, some industry watchers say Wi-Fi Direct could pose a threat to the future of Bluetooth, and the Bluetooth SIG has taken a fairly robust position. Exec director Mike Foley’s full, official statement can be seen at the end of this story. It is lengthy, and I suggest you skip to the end of this story and read that as it is kinda significant, and then come back here. Please.

I will continue, assuming that you have ....

Others industry observers have been a little more forthright in their comments. It’s appropriate to share some of their views with Incisor’s readers.
Stephen Wood, up until recently the president of the WiMedia Alliance, and a technology strategist at Intel until his recent move into self-employment, commented: “It is a normal behavior for companies/technologies to try to consume adjacent applications to expand their business. That’s excellent for the stockholders of the company trying to expand, but it is not necessarily beneficial to the consumer. On the positive side, the competition will force Bluetooth to come to grips with their ease of use issues in order to compete. On the negative side, the Wi-Fi introduction will create greater customer confusion, interoperability issues, operational complexity and will accelerate spectrum congestion due to additional protocol overhead.” Wood continued, “If this move were to be done for the benefit of consumers, one would see efforts to blend the Wi-Fi and Bluetooth organizations to harmonize and simplify the collected offering. If it is done to increase revenue for the Wi-Fi silicon manufacturers, I would expect to see competing claims of superiority and efforts to displace existing Bluetooth sockets by the Wi-Fi manufacturers. Regardless of who wins this contest, let’s hope that the consumers get a device that is easy to use. It’s a goal that both groups have found challenging to meet so far.”

Technology strategist #2, Nick Hunn, a stalwart of the SRW industry, had plenty to say (who said ‘nothing new there’?). “There’s a lot of hot air been expelled over Wi-Fi Direct and its perceived threat to Bluetooth. A lot of it comes from PC industry pundits, who don’t understand that their technology is sinking as it hits the iceberg of mobile telephony. Much of the debate is academic. Both are underlying wireless transports that just perform the mechanics of shifting data. Wi-Fi Direct and Bluetooth 3.0 both use the same underlying 802.11 standard, so there’s likely to be no difference in throughput between them. Bluetooth 3.0 has some nice features, such as allowing concurrent ad-hoc connections and hotspot access, concurrent 802.11 and Bluetooth audio performance and ad-hoc security managed by the Bluetooth link itself. All of these are useful tools that help to provide an easier user experience. It may also have the edge in power consumption, as it only uses the inherently power hungry 802.11 technology when it is needed.”

Hunn continued: “We won’t know how these features compare until the first Wi-Fi Direct products appear. That may take a little longer than the press release implies, as I suspect there will be several vested interests trying to slide their IP into the spec, which will inevitably slow things down. Unless, of course, the Wi-Fi Alliance allows its members to launch pre- pre- Wi-Fi Direct products. At the end of the day, the current debate misses the point, which is that users just want to share data. They want a user interface that says “Send to a Friend”. They don’t care whether it’s Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, 3G, LTE or (dare I say) UWB. As long as it’s included in their monthly call plan, it’s easy and it works.”

Wi-Fi Direct means that Wi-Fi is invading territory that once was to be UWB’s ballpark. Gary Anderson, CEO of Ultra-wideband company Uraxs, put it even more bluntly: “In the long run it will prove to be of no real threat, just a waste of time and resources. Wi-Fi is not meant to be a peer to peer technology because instead of economy of scale you get diminishing returns. I think Wi-Fi-Direct will prove to be a security, interference, and power management nightmare, if it ever materializes at all.”

If there is a bush in the vicinity, Anderson is certainly not beating around it.
Meanwhile, Fiona Thomson, research director at IMS Research saw it like this: “I think Wi-Fi Direct is a neat idea but maybe a bit late in coming? Outside of the typical handset/headset use-case I think transferring (small) files using Bluetooth is probably what Bluetooth is most commonly used for already - albeit a bit slow and probably used more by younger generations to transfer pictures, ring tones etc. Bluetooth high-speed should help with the speed issue and ensure it remains competitive/ahead of Wi-Fi Direct.”

Thomson felt that there was an undercurrent behind the Wi-Fi Alliance’s announcement. “Slightly controversially, it feels like the Wi-Fi guys are starting to do what the Bluetooth guys have been doing for a while – tweaking a technology to applications which it’s not really been designed for.” Thomson’s final comment could bring a little comfort to the Bluetooth community. “My colleague Filomena Berardi has been following this more recently for her report ‘Peer-to-Peer Wireless – Which High Speed Technology?’. I asked her thoughts and she said that while the new spec is adequate for data transfers, she’s not sure the approach really fits the streaming (audio and video) application well. In addition, during the research many interviewees argued that the 802.11 infrastructure works very well for the purposes of LAN but for PAN applications, other technologies such as Bluetooth work better.”

The sharks are circling
Whatever the technical merits and usability prospects are for Wi-Fi Direct, here at Incisor we believe that there is perhaps something more sinister going on. Of all of the wireless sectors that Incisor has followed, Wi-Fi is populated by the most aggressive and predatory gunslingers.

Even based on our limited technical understanding, it is quite clear that Wi-Fi Direct will not be the simple to use panacea that the Wi-Fi Alliance would like us to believe. But, there are a lot of powerful companies in the Wi-Fi sector that will doubtless throw all of their weight behind the trade and consumer PR campaign that we can expect to see rolled out over the coming months, and they will that say that it is. There seems little question that the goal is to make Wi-Fi the predominant short-range wireless technology and no prisoners will be taken along the way.
Unconvinced? Well, look at what happened to Ultra-wideband. This (UWB) is an extremely clever solution, and for moving large amounts of data about in WPAN applications, while using very small amounts of battery power to do so, it is unrivalled. Neither Bluetooth nor Wi-Fi comes close. This is why UWB was the partner of choice for the Bluetooth SIG to align with as its High Speed Bluetooth solution. It was publicly announced as such. But what happened? What happened is that the Wi-Fi proponents systematically stamped out UWB, using the financial clout of big-time Wi-Fi companies and the influence of their execs on various wireless technology alliances/SIGs and forums. Some will protest this was not the case, but many more quietly acknowledge that this was what happened.

But it doesn’t stop there. It seems that the Wi-Fi companies are not satisfied with wiping out UWB, they want all of the available SRW business that there is. Wi-Fi, they say, can do any job that needs to be done by a short-range, WPAN technology. Are they (the Wi-Fi companies) looking to take on Bluetooth? Is it possible that Bluetooth could be threatened by Wi-Fi? Rather than being a partner to provide a high-speed data channel for Bluetooth in the Alternative MAC/PHY scenario, is Wi-Fi actually a viper in the nest? For what it is worth, I believe that Bluetooth is the technology for the WPAN, and 3 billion installed Bluetooth devices and the presence of the tech in the vast majority of handsets will mean that that continues to be the case.

Many will argue that Wi-Fi Direct’s attempt on global SRW domination is built upon foundations of sand, and with plenty of justification. But this is to ignore the fact that exactly the same was true when Wi-Fi set out to displace Ultra-wideband.

So, there would seem to be interesting times ahead of us. As we said in the crummy pun headline, is Wi-Fi Direct a flash in the WPAN? We don’t yet know. But we expect the push to establish Wi-Fi Direct to be relentless. And, with the Wi-Fi community’s willingness to pre-release equipment to ‘draft’ specifications, how long will it be before we start seeing Wi-Fi Certified Wi-Fi Direct (Draft) products on retail shelves, confusing the heck out of consumers?

One thing is for sure ... We doubt this is the last time Incisor will be writing about Wi-Fi Direct.




Bluetooth SIG: official response to Wi-Fi Direct

The announcement of Wi-Fi Direct, from the Wi-Fi Alliance, has resulted in confusion in the wireless industry. Not too long ago, it was well understood that Wi-Fi was the best technology for wireless LAN (i.e. connecting a personal device to the Internet) and Bluetooth wireless technology was best suited for wireless PAN (i.e. connecting personal devices to each other). However, once 802.11 and Bluetooth radios both started appearing in a single device, such as a mobile phone or personal computer, the question quickly arose regarding how the 802.11 radio could be leveraged to enhance PAN scenarios. The answer to this question was the Bluetooth v3.0 + HS specification adopted this past April by the Bluetooth SIG. This specification defines how an 802.11 radio can be utilized in conjunction with a Bluetooth radio. The combination of the two radios results in a complete, power efficient system that utilizes the best features of each technology to deliver the personal area networking scenarios.

The Bluetooth v3.0 + HS specification does not utilize Wi-Fi. It utilizes 802.11 which is a specification published by the IEEE. Utilizing existing Bluetooth features, such as easy pairing and profiles, enables complete solutions that are useful and make sense for consumers familiar with the technology they have used over the years in the more than three billion Bluetooth products already in the market.

A Wi-Fi Direct connection is simply that: a network connection between two devices. Consider plugging a PC and printer into a switch using Ethernet cables and trying to print a picture. (Recall the original name of Wi-Fi was wireless Ethernet.) While the two devices will have network connectivity, and assuming there is IP infrastructure in place (DHCP, DNS, etc.) or they auto IP the same way, they will have the potential to communicate utilizing the IP protocol. Now all one has to do is install an IP port for the printer and install the driver. In the home environment, that isn’t too bad because the consumer probably has the printer’s driver and setting up the port once isn’t overly burdensome. However, in the home the consumer most likely has an access point and would rather make the printer available to all PCs in the house so one would most likely connect to the network via the access point instead of Wi-Fi Direct. When mobile, a driver most likely isn’t available and even if it was, installing it to print once is overly burdensome for the consumer. Once the printer is installed on the PC and the driver loaded, the picture can then be printed. Similar ease-of-use limitations occur when any popular scenario is explored.

Conversely, two products implementing Bluetooth technology leverage standardized profiles. For the example above, one typically right clicks on the picture to be printed and selects “print” or “send to.” The printer is then discovered and the picture prints without requiring additional drivers or software. Simple. Easy. Effective.

Clearly, there are multiple solutions available for IP service discovery. Any of these could be utilized to simplify the IP-based printing scenario described above. Unfortunately, having multiple service discovery solutions overly complicates the scenario for the consumer. It is highly unlikely that manufacturers will converge on one solution. Instead, the consumer will have to understand which solution their products implement and only purchase compatible ones. Thus the Wi-Fi Direct distinction will mean very little to the consumer. Instead, they will have to understand whether they have a UPnP, Bonjour, DLNA, SLP or fill-in-the-blank product. With a Bluetooth solution, the consumer simply needs to know they have Bluetooth enabled products.

Could this be the Bluetooth headset the world will wear?

It is no big secret that people feel awkward about wearing Bluetooth headsets in public. Some of the market researchers are saying that usage is declining, not growing. It is true, there are some clunky headsets out there, but there are also some that are quite discrete and – dare we say – stylish. So, user reluctance is a little hard to understand.

But things could be about to change with the launch of the Jabra Stone, a new headset from GN Netcom, the Danish company that is already well established as a leader in headset solutions. The Jabra Stone is described, with some justification, as a revolutionary wireless headset that signals a new era in style and breaks the mold of the traditional Bluetooth headset.

It certainly has a shape like no other headset on the market, and wraps behind the ear, eliminating the standard on-face microphone. As another really neat feature, the Stone comes with a wireless portable charger that also functions as a compact carrying case that fits into the palm of your hand – simply plug your headset into the charger and power-up whenever and wherever you want to. Once you’ve docked the headset into the charger, this becomes one tactile device, that everyone wants to hold and examine.

It is not just all about looks though. The Stone contains some pretty advanced technology, including noise cancelling technology while taking the microphone arm off your face. Jabra’s trademark for its system is Noise Blackout Extreme, and this is a new generation of noise cancelling technology that reduces ambient sound without compromising voice quality. It does provide an excellent balance between noise elimination and the delivery of a natural sounding voice. The technology uses dual microphones to capture sound while intelligently filtering background noise only.

Anne Rasmussen, Vice President, Mobile Division at GN Netcom told Incisor: “The Jabra Stone is truly the most revolutionary product we have ever created and we are confident that it is going to change the way consumers think about Bluetooth headsets,” said “The unique shape combines with noise cancellation technology so advanced that a boom arm isn’t needed make it an all new concept.”

The Stone also has discreetly placed controls that, unlike many Bluetooth headsets, are easy to operate. With a nearly invisible touch-controlled volume pad on the outside of the headset, users can slide their finger up or down to control the volume while on a call. The headset’s flexible frame is lined with soft rubber padding, and stayed comfortable after several hours of use while this writer drove across the USA. An ultra-soft ear gel around the speaker ensures a natural feel and the headset is flexible for a perfect fit. Nobody likes the struggle to put a Bluetooth headset on as you try to answer a call, and the Stone avoids this, slipping on without a problem.

The Jabra Stone supports Bluetooth 2.1 + EDR & eSCO, easy pairing and multi-point so that you can connect two Bluetooth enabled devices at the same time with MultiuseTM capabilities and provides up to 8 hours talk time and 12 days standby time with the Jabra Stone Charger. Other features include voice dialing (depending on the phone used), and music streaming music from A2DP enabled mobile phones. Oh, and it is lightweight – weighing only 7g.

Here at Incisor we are ready to go on record and say that this is one excellent headset. It looks good, works well, and crucially, when we have shown it around, people who have previously said they wouldn’t wear a Bluetooth headset have said “wow, can you get me one?” That is telling, which is why, in answer to our own question in the headline for this review, we would say – yes, we certainly think so.

At the time of launch, the Jabra Stone was available exclusively in the UK at Carphone Warehouse stores and is priced around £99.00.

See the IncisorTV movie showing the Jabra Stone here. (click to view)

Bluetooth dreams revisited

by Dean Anthony Gratton

We want to tell you a story ... it might be very familiar to some, whilst to others it may seem to be nothing more than tittle-tattle.

Bluetooth wireless technology has enjoyed a level of success, with over eleven years experience under its belt but, to date, it has struggled to capture mainstream consumerism. Furthermore, its success has pretty much been limited to enabling a variety of headsets, thus ensuring that vehicle drivers around the world have their two hands firmly on the steering wheel. Likewise, a number of vehicle manufacturers have integrated the technology into their mid- to high-end models with enormous success. This, in some respects, is a double edged sword for the technology, as Bluetooth has found itself somewhat ‘un-coolly’ pigeonholed into a niche market of clunky ‘behind the ear’ hands free gadgetry that many of us have found embarrassing to admit using. And yet, there is so much more to the technology than most consumers see. Its capabilities, if sensibly marketed from day one, should have made it a wireless superstar instead of the one trick pony it’s still commonly envisaged as. Many of us might think we know the score but, as a technology writer, the question is still so often asked” ‘What is Bluetooth?’ and ‘What will it do next?’ So let’s tackle those seemingly naïve, but nonetheless vital, consumer questions head on.

What is Bluetooth?
Indeed a contentious subject and feature, but let’s not be inhibited in delving into some core facts and analogies about Bluetooth wireless technology. Whilst avoiding a regurgitation of what we already know about the technology and the manufacturers associated hype about it; namely that it wasn’t ready when they first said it was, let’s instead focus on the notion that Bluetooth needs to shake off its association with cumbersome user experiences and begin embracing a new chapter. This is especially prevalent now, as Wi-Fi Direct is clipping at its heels! Incidentally, many seem to suggest that the Wi-Fi Alliance’s announcement was a knee-jerk reaction, as Bluetooth was rallying advocates of the technology along to steer the direction of the future of the technology. This is an area of some contention that we’ll discuss in greater depth later in the article.

In answering the question, ‘What is Bluetooth’ we have to first refer back to the original marketing touted by the Bluetooth Special Interest Group (SIG) and that is, ‘Bluetooth wireless technology is (first and foremost) a cable replacement technology’. Seems straightforward, right? Bluetooth was conceived, as an alternative to cabled connectivity and was targeted to provide greater flexibility than that offered by Infrared. In other words, enabling a host of consumer electronic products that don’t need a physical connection or aren’t restricted to line-of-sight.

In short, Bluetooth wireless technology is simply a cable replacement technology.

Jack of all trades, master of none?
The Bluetooth SIG in its early days conceived numerous profiles and user scenarios, detailing how Bluetooth wireless technology could be utilised in the real world and how the technology could remedy everyday gripes when using a cable or Infrared. The process of creating new profiles is an ongoing activity within the Bluetooth SIG and, with a recent health device profile being introduced to the profile portfolio, some manufacturers are evidently vying for a new chapter in the technology’s future. Yes, eHealth, along with Bluetooth low energy wireless should pave the way forward for new applications. In particular, a recent announcement (June 2009) from the Continua Health Alliance confirms that Bluetooth wireless technology will enable a new generation of health care products.

But many have accused Bluetooth of being ‘jack of all trades and master of none’. Others have purported that it simply doesn’t have the power to diversify any further. As we’ve already hinted at, consumers seem to associate Bluetooth with headsets, and, oh yeah, you can also interoperate your phone within a vehicle that’s Bluetooth-enabled! Bluetooth has numerous profiles, including: the Headset profile (of course); Dial-up Networking, Personal Area Networking; Basic Imaging/Printing and the Synchronisation Profile to name but a few (a full list can be found on the Bluetooth SIG’s website: bluetooth.com).

The Killer Application that killed Bluetooth’s ‘cool’
So, with numerous applications available why has Bluetooth become pigeonholed into a niche? To be totally controversial here, you could say that what it does it does perhaps a little too well! It seems that its killer application quickly became so intrinsic to safe travel that it effectively ‘killed’ the technology’s potential consumer association with other applications. It’s not that its adopted value isn’t important, but rather, it was perhaps the way its integration was shaped by the manufactures that made many of us associate Bluetooth with the ultimate in ‘un-cool’. Couldn’t they have been a little more imaginative? Where’s Philippe Starck when you need him (Ed. – er, he’s here, Dean) ? But wait a moment! Are things taking a turn? Is Bluetooth finally exfoliating away its pockmarked public complexion and giving itself an airbrushed supermodelesque relaunch? The introduction of glamorous and enticing new headset designs by companies such as Motorola, Sony Ericsson and Jabra would suggest so. And now, with stereo Bluetooth strutting its stuff in the market place, Bluetooth is moving away from just a mono phone audio device and is finally seducing the public with its superior audio streaming, bringing wireless music to the masses in a totally cool way.

This success makes us wonder whether the dark clouds of the past have finally begun to clear for Bluetooth. Marketers can finally hype to their hearts content about the new look designs in a way that won’t have them blushing when they put their names to a campaign. Consumers will invest in the technology with a new found confidence that it won’t make them look geeky and will even consider trying out new forms of Bluetooth applications. The one trick pony can now think about entering the wireless technology race with pride.

The high-speed accolade
But are we getting carried away with the gloss of it all? Perhaps the success of Bluetooth dominating the short-range arena really rests upon its conquering the high-speed accolade, which the Bluetooth SIG initially attempted with the Enhanced Data Rate (EDR) offering, but clearly still fell fall short of Wi-Fi’s greater data throughput. All is not lost however, and it seems that Bluetooth is still very much in the running for long-tem success, as CSR recently announced that it has partnered with Taiwan’s leading wireless IC design houses, including Realtek, to deliver a family of Bluetooth V2.0 + High Speed (HS) and 802.11n module designs for the PC and netbook markets. The BlueCore based designs will support the latest Bluetooth SIG specifications to enable high data transfer speeds by integrating the 802.11 radio to cope with larger file sizes. Furthermore, the partnership will mean that the new technology will be able to shift seamlessly between one wireless technology and the other, thereby ensuring maximum speed and power efficiency whilst presenting a unified interface to the all-important user. This union will no doubt ensure that Bluetooth has a promising future with previously unimaginable opportunities for integration into applications.

The Wi-Fi Direct threat
Wi-Fi Direct has however been viewed by many as a threat. The Wi-Fi Alliance is moving forward with the protocol that is set to challenge the Bluetooth market head on. Theoretically capable of transferring data at 250Mbits/sec, significantly better than Bluetooth, which has yet to extend up its 11Mbits/sec range, Wi-Fi Direct should have Bluetooth trembling at its knees and yet the King seems to be standing firm and resolute, eager to prove that alliance is always better than war and focussing on the fact that Wi-Fi’s trade off for its purported increased throughput will be a much larger power draw, making it less attractive to today’s environmentally aware consumers.

Dreams revisited
We mustn’t forget that when we first heard about Bluetooth we were all blown away. It was only the premature hype of the industry marketers, coupled with poor early design integration that publically shattered the consumer dream. But it seems that finally now, in light of the new design focus adopted by manufacturers, the public embracing of stereo Bluetooth as a chic and effective way of listening to audio and the increasing reality that Bluetooth High Speed will make it and make it big, the time may well have come for Bluetooth to dream again.

Can Bluetooth be cool – Part 2 - BiteBack visits Seattle

And an interesting social media exercise ...


Well, it’s a month since the first IncisorTV BiteBack event, in which we took our cameras to a UK live music venue and talked to people about the way they really felt about Bluetooth – did they use it, if so, for what, and would they say that Bluetooth was cool, or naff? You can see the movie that we made here.

The exercise was a revelation, and substantially changed the way we felt about consumer perceptions of Bluetooth technology. The main observations that we made from the UK event were these:

• Young people (say, 16-25) do not use Bluetooth headsets. They see no reason to do so.

• Older people (25+) do, but mainly because they have to due to legislation – i.e. when they are in a car.

• Everybody, but everybody considered Bluetooth mono headsets un-cool and would not want to wear one in public.

• Nobody I spoke to had ever used a Bluetooth stereo headset.

• The single most popular application for Bluetooth is file-sharing – music and pictures. This application was described by a number of people as ‘cool’.

• The majority thought that Bluetooth might be more popular if it was marketed better. Most said that they never saw Bluetooth marketing.

• Many said that a) Bluetooth used to have a better visibility/awareness than it does today and b) in the social groups that people exist in, Bluetooth is used less now than it used to be.

• Several said that for the key application – file sharing – Bluetooth was too slow.

The BiteBack UK movie itself has since been watched by many thousands of people, and the exercise generated a great deal of interest from the wireless industry. The Bluetooth Special Interest Group had been following what we were doing and executive director Mike Foley used his Twitter and Facebook reach to propose the idea of another BiteBack event in the SIG’s home town of Seattle. That got immediate support, and so the plan was set. Both GN Netcom with its Jabra brand, and Parrot - two of the companies that have done most to reach out to the consumer market with Bluetooth - wanted to be part of the BiteBack programme too, and so they were soon on board.

We found ourselves a venue – the SEE Sound Lounge in Seattle’s hip and trendy Belltown area, set a date – the 30th of October – and booked our flights to get there. Remember the date, by the way, as this was the Halloween weekend. Halloween is a big deal in the USA, more of which below.


Social Media actually works!

We then wanted to promote the BiteBack event to Seattle gadget-eratti, and so there ensued a concerted social media campaign. I used Twitter and Facebook to broadcast the messages and to help me find the right people on the ground in Seattle to help me spread the word effectively. Huge thanks to Colin Christianson, Chris Pirillo and Kristina Hudson at the Washington Interactive Network. All of them are hugely well-connected people in the Seattle area with massive profiles on the various social media networks. They pushed the BiteBack message out far and wide. At the same time, Bluetooth SIG execs Mike Foley and Diana Hoffman, and the SIG’s PR agents at INK, all used their So-Me networks to push the BiteBack message out.

If we were concerned that we might have an empty venue, we needn’t have worried. On the night, the SEE Sound Lounge was so packed with people you could barely move. The Bluetooth SIG, Jabra and Parrot were all in attendance, and spent the evening showing some of the latest and coolest Bluetooth products to the assembled crowds. This was leading edge-evangelisation – face to face, telling the story, showing the products. It doesn’t get much more real!


The American way

So, how would the views of Americans differ from those of Bluetooth-using Brits? Well, you are going to have to watch the movie to get the full picture, but here are a few of the highlights:

• The single most popular application for Bluetooth amongst British users, which was file sharing – music tracks particularly, but pictures, contact details too – was hardly used by the American crowd. This wasn’t because there was no desire to do so. No, it was much more sinister than that. The reason they are not using Bluetooth to share files is because of the cynical decision by the all-powerful US cellular operators to disable the File Transfer Profile (FTP) in the phones that they supply to US consumers. They (the operators) would much rather that their customers pay to transfer their copy of ‘Party in the USA’ thousands of miles across the cellular network rather than Bluetooth it 3 feet across a table. Words fail .... The good news is that most of the people we talked to were aware that it was their operator that was doing this to them, and there was a great deal of resentment towards the money-grabbing capitalists. Hopefully, the message will get back eventually. It doesn’t happen in the UK and other parts of the world, so come on you guys, smell the coffee (Seattle, so Starbucks, presumably)!
• There is a similar reluctance to wearing mono headsets amongst young Seattle-ites, but if anything, the people we talked to were less rude than the UK people!
• There seemed to be a higher level of awareness of stereo Bluetooth headsets in the USA, but still nobody was using them.
• Show a Bluetooth product like the Jabra Halo stereo headset, as we did, and this would generally get a ‘wow, I had no idea you could buy cool products like that’ –type reaction. A few people seemed to be using Bluetooth speaker systems, but only one person admitted to ever having seen a Bluetooth photo-frame such as the Specchio from Parrot. Almost 100% of the people that we talked to agreed that they would use Bluetooth more if they knew more about it – if the products that used Bluetooth were better marketed. Likewise, show them a Bluetooth mono headset that they might want to wear, such as the rather sexy Jabra Stone, a Bluetooth-enabled head unit that they can install in place of rubbishy old CD system in their car, some handy wireless speakers so that they can listen to their music with their mates, and their eyes light up. Clearly, there is still a lot of work to be done to spread the broader Bluetooth message By the way, I know that I am referencing products from BiteBack’s sponsors here, but there are two good reasons for that. First, they are BiteBack’s sponsors, and have shown their commitment, so, hey, what else would you expect me to do? And second, Jabra and Parrot both make some of the coolest, stylish and most innovative Bluetooth products out there, so they qualify entirely on merit.
• The US people were the same as the UK people. They said that if a Bluetooth gadget they were trying to use failed to work as they wanted, when they wanted, they would probably put it away in a draw and forget about it. The ease of use requirement will never go away. It has to be simple, simple, simple.

For the rest, you will have to watch the video. Be warned, though! This was a party event, with a fancy dress theme, and that theme was Disco Monsters. You are going to be seeing some people in some weird and wonderful outfits. Underneath the strange garb, these are still young, technically sophisticated Seattle people. If Silicon Valley used to be the epicentre of young, techy geekdom, Seattle took over that mantle some time ago. These are A List, top-most-relevant-consumers for the developers and vendors or wireless-enabled electronics devices. Their views count.

Meanwhile, BiteBack rolls on. The Bluetooth SIG, Jabra and Parrot have all committed to further events, and our next stop is Asia. Details are still being finalised, but the next BiteBack looks like being a two event programme, with the team meeting with Bluetooth consumers in both Korean and Japan during the first week.

The same crew will be running BiteBack Asia, and we will be working again with Mike Foley and the Bluetooth SIG, and with Jabra and Parrot. There is no limit on who can be involved. If you want to be part of BiteBack, then contact me.

For now, enjoy the movie from BiteBack 2 – Wireless in Seattle.

Can Bluetooth ever be cool?

And what did real people say about Bluetooth at the IncisorTV Bite-Back event?


That is a question that must be troubling technology marketeers across the world, including the makers of headsets and other Bluetooth-enabled devices, and the organisation that manages Bluetooth technology – the Bluetooth Special Interest Group (SIG).

Bluetooth has been around since 1998, and actual Bluetooth devices started appearing a couple of years later. The very first commercially available Bluetooth product was from Ericsson, as reported in Incisor in November 1999.



From that day forth, promoters of Bluetooth have hoped that there would be a global wave of enthusiasm for the technology from consumers. But it just hasn’t happened. Despite the fact that legislation in a number of countries forces us to use Bluetooth headsets if we want to talk on a cellphone in our cars, Bluetooth daily usage is apparently going down, not up. Research company Strategy Analytics says by as much as 40% in the USA over the last year.

Here at Incisor we think that a big part of the problem is that nobody, but nobody has managed to make wearing a Bluetooth headset cool. Instead, the words ‘Bluetooth’ and ‘naff’ are heard together on far too often a basis. Only taxicab drivers and people who wear leisure suits made from synthetic materials (ok, they are often the same people) seem to think it is OK to be seen walking around wearing a Bluetooth headset.

The web is loaded with anti-Bluetooth humour, including this. Bluetooth-mocking movies are even being used as a device by companies marketing products. Check this commercial out for Keystone Light Beer. Even the vendors of Bluetooth equipment are doing it – thanks, Philips, for this one.

Some claim to be working to try to make Bluetooth cool, and have been using the old chestnut of celebrity endorsement. Courtesy of Plantronics’ marketing machine, we learn that P Diddy, Eva Longoria and Brooke Shields apparently all use Plantronics headsets. Bluetooth headsets have even made their way into music videos – Motorola product placement is at work as we watch this one for Fergie’s Big girls don’t cry. This is one of the better ones – check out that car, that girl, that track, and the headset is OK too.

But it is not working! Or else, why are all of those iPod users still walking around with their tacky white plastic headsets? Why would we want to use wired headsets when there is a huge range of wireless headsets on the market now for similar money?

And surely this must be holding back the more widespread deployment of Bluetooth technology in other consumer electronics devices?

With some justification, the Bluetooth SIG and big-name consumer electronics (CE) companies that are supporting Bluetooth will point to the fact that billions of Bluetooth chips have been shipped, and have been built into many products that are in the hands of consumers all over the world. That is true, but it doesn’t mean that these people are using Bluetooth, or that massive chip sales means that Bluetooth has become aspirational (like, dare we say it, an iPod) or, to use the word again, cool.

So, what is the problem, and is it too late? Can Bluetooth regain the momentum it had in the early years, when people actually criticised the Bluetooth trailblazers for creating too much publicity and too much pent-up demand and hype (‘bet they’d like some of that back now!)? What would it take?

We have theories, but we want to hear from the big wide world. So we have been promoting a ‘Can Bluetooth be cool?’ blog via all of Incisor’s channels, including Twitter, Facebook and business networking sites such as LinkedIn. There have been a great number of contributions from people all over the world – some constructive, and some taking the opportunity to share some web ‘humour’. You can read all of the many, many comments by clicking on the link above, and read it at the Incisor site.


IncisorTV takes to the streets

And we took our investigation a stage further. On the 26th of September Incisor staged a public event called Bite-Back (Bluetooth/Incisor – Bite-Back – geddit?) at a venue in the UK where there was live music and – the main point – lots of young people. We took the IncisorTV cameras, a bunch of Bluetooth products and we interviewed people and asked them for their views. These can be seen by clicking on this link and watching the IncisorTV movie. As with the blog comments, there was a broad selection of views, some less than complimentary, but listening to these people’s views, thinking and responding is better than maintaining a head in the sand attitude. All of the marketeers at all of the Bluetooth consumer device companies may think they know what the consumers want, but there is nothing like hearing it from the consumers themselves.

Incisor is committed to looking for ways to Make Bluetooth Cool and plans to roll out the Bite-Back event programme, staging live events in the US, Scandinavia, Europe and maybe even Asia. The Bite-Back concept seems to have struck a chord. Headset company Jabra supported the first event, and Bluetooth SIG exec director Mike Foley suggested on Twitter that it would be good (cool?) to stage the event on the SIG’s home turf in Seattle.
So, we talked about it and we have confirmation of support from the Bluetooth SIG for the next Bite-Back event, which will take place in Seattle at the end of October.

We can’t do this on our own, so in order to do make the Bite-Back programme work as well as it can do, we need support from companies that want to be – and are brave enough to be ( ) - part of the programme. If you are interested, contact Vince Holton.