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.

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.

A bitter harvest: ZigBee Green Power

ZigBee has been something of a contentious subject over the last few years or so. It has received some moderate attention at Incisor, but nothing sensational that would make us sit up and start taking notes. Arguably, a lot of the ZigBee news has been lacklustre and likewise, it has drawn some of us to several unfounded and premature conclusions, one of which might have been, “Could this be the last curtain call for ZigBee?” ZigBee isn’t necessarily a newbie wireless technology, but despite its longevity it still seems relatively new; if you like, it’s still wrapped up in its packaging.

ZigBee enters the healthcare market
ZigBee endeavours to address multiple low energy wireless solutions within health, home and building automation, along with a number of ‘coming soon’ applications. More recently, the ZigBee Alliance was endorsed by the Continua Health Alliance (continuaalliance.org), as it was suggested that ZigBee has “superior power efficiency and networking capabilities” (ZigBee Enters Health Care Market, Incisor July 2009). Nonetheless, it has been suggested that the technology isn’t as prolific as the ZigBee Alliance seems to suggest (zigbee.org). Likewise, some still argue that ZigBee continues to suffer from coexistence and interoperability issues which are plaguing many of its member companies.

The basic premise of any wireless product is to offer coexistence and interoperability with multiple manufacturers, but some reports have indicated that this simply doesn’t happen with ZigBee and ZigBee PRO or, at the very least, that some manufacturers are experiencing issues with what is perceived to be a proprietary technology rather than an industry recognised standard. Arguably controversial, and further heated by accusations from antagonists suggesting that the Alliance has self-declared the technology as a standard, yet it is still to be recognised by the IEC, ISO and so on. What some of you may not know is that ZigBee comprises two significant components, which make up its current solution and technology. The first is the radio, which is based on the IEEE 802.15.4 standard; however, the majority of ZigBee’s technology is founded within a software protocol stack that sits on top of the radio – a fact that is often misunderstood and the mainstay upon which ZigBee’s IP is invested.

What’s that blip on our radar?
So, what brings ZigBee to our attention this month? The current blip on our short-range radar, is ZigBee’s most recent announcement (June 2009, zigbee.org) of its Green Power offering – a prophecy perhaps of an imminent bitter harvest. Having been featured within Incisor for two consecutive months now, we could speculate that the ZigBee Alliance’s marketing machine must be doing something right, right? Yes, the ZigBee Alliance announced a new feature set, namely the ZigBee Green Power specification, which is planned to be completed circa end of 2009. We pestered the Alliance for additional information and perhaps a sneak preview, but they were keeping their cards close to their chest. Nevertheless, the Alliance’s Kevin Schader, Director of Communications (and the PR group) was very supportive and provided a better perspective of the new feature set, albeit a helicopter view, as the scope was very new.

However, before we begin to broach the nature of the controversy that ensued following their announcement, let’s fill in some blanks for those who might be new to this particular topic. It seems traditional, as part of our ‘saving the world’ mantra, to throw a little ‘green’ into the product portfolio – after all it’s been the colour populating most of our headlines at Incisor over the past few months. Both classic Bluetooth and Wi-Fi are power hungry technologies and therefore often raise ‘green’ issues, but, then again, they do offer very different applications to those afforded by ZigBee. In more recent news, we have seen both Wi-Fi and Bluetooth strive to become greener in their applications and technologies. In the low power domain, a number of companies offer low energy solutions, which directly compete with ZigBee; for example, Z-Wave (from zen-sys.com) and EnOcean (enocean.com), which employs a number of clever energy harvesting techniques that date back to the early 1990s (EnOcean technology emerged from the Siemens group, where the spin-off company that became EnOcean GmbH had previously invented the technology). But ZigBee already boasts a low power theme and has proudly done so since its inception; however, with its Green Power specification it offers something a little different and this is where the controversy begins.

EnOcean is synonymous with energy harvesting
EnOcean is primarily the proponent company offering energy harvesting techniques and commercial solutions in over 100,000 buildings. The technology dates back to early 1990s where Siemens originally conceived the technology and, with over a decade’s experience, the company has accumulated numerous patents that not only detail techniques, but extend to some fundamental applications, several of which are publicly available on their website (see enocean.com/en/products-technology, courtesy of Graham Martin, Chairman, EnOcean Alliance). At Incisor, we also became privy to other numerous patents, which baffled us somewhat as to how ZigBee could possibly move forward with any energy harvesting solution whilst EnOcean had it so well-covered and protected. So, we caught up with Graham Martin, EnOcean’s Alliance Chairman who couldn’t publicly offer us any comment, although he did support his perspective on the issue with some comprehensive reference material.

In starting to write this story we made several assumptions based on initial information, but looking more closely at the press releases and following up on a number of pertinent questions to the ZigBee Alliance with a ‘pull no punches’ stance, we eventually arrived at a very different conclusion. Inevitably, we were caught up in the furore of the ZigBee Alliance venturing into developing energy harvesting technology and trampling all over EnOcean’s well-established IP territory. Crikey, it’s all too easy to wag the proverbial finger, as was initially the case with ZigBee’s new Green Power specification, where the Alliance allegedly purported energy harvesting techniques, offering a new generation of batteryless ZigBee products; something which was ringing a familiar bell – reminding us perhaps of the very same energy harvesting techniques first presented by EnOcean and quite clearly now a bone of contention between the two companies.

IP infringement – that’s just suicide!
Neither the ZigBee Alliance, nor any other company for that matter, could afford a battle in court surrounding IP infringement – no-one would be that stupid, right? But let’s take a closer look at the Alliance’s press release: dated, June 29, 2009 (also available on its website) which states “The ZigBee Alliance, ... today announced development of the ZigBee Green Power feature set to establish a global standard technology for self-powered devices operating through energy harvesting techniques. These devices will communicate seamlessly with existing ZigBee and ZigBee PRO networks and will enable maintenance free, environmentally friendly products that eliminate the need for wires and batteries.” Let’s translate this into English!

The first point in the release is the definition of a new feature set, which will establish a global standard for self-powering devices – doesn’t sound like anyone is developing any new technology here! When we asked Alliance execs to clarify, they intimated that their software protocol stack, the part of the ZigBee offering that they have heavily invested in, would be modified to support energy-harvesting-enabled devices. Eh? What? What did we miss? Surely, you’re developing new technology and techniques that are going to conflict with existing IP, right? Well, apparently, not! Instead, Kevin Schader, Director of Communications, ZigBee Alliance confirms “ZigBee Green Power is an enhancement to the ZigBee and ZigBee PRO [protocol] stacks.” Schader continues to explain, “It will allow energy harvesting devices, regardless of manufacturer, to join a ZigBee network.”

What, another protocol stack?
Naturally, many antagonists would be raising some inevitable issues regarding another change to the protocol stack, as ZigBee has already suffered from some backwards incompatibility problems with its early stacks. But, with the delivery of its new feature set, it’s certainly going to be one to watch. Schader was quick to remark “ZigBee Green Power is backward compatible with existing ZigBee devices and networks.” Presumably, the Alliance can’t afford another faux-pas whilst maintaining and promoting a technology to a diverse market. It seems the ZigBee Alliance is working towards some kind of wireless utopia in enabling its devices to extend and connect with energy-harvesting-enabled devices. Dare we say, it’s offering an outstretched arm to technologies such as EnOcean?

It seems that many analysts initially reacted to ZigBee’s press release with the attitude that it was nothing less than a corporate suicide note, but let’s recall an old saying, “there is no such thing as bad publicity except your own obituary” (Brendan Behan). Was lack of tenacity and ability to focus on anything other than the PR ‘headline’ reason enough for others to wonder if ZigBee was writing theirs? It seems a shallow pool for Zigbee’s PR to drown in. Nonetheless, when actually taking the time to read the press release in full, alongside unequivocal support from the Alliance and applying a generous measure of good common sense it seems ZigBee’s Green Power feature set is merely an enhancement to their protocol stack which, in turn, the Alliance hopes will support a global ecosystem of multiple products from multiple manufacturers. Anyhow, we shall be watching ZigBee’s evolution of its Green Power offering very closely, along with monitoring EnOcean’s reaction.

You see, all this wireless stuff can be exciting and is certainly not for the faint hearted!


by Dean Anthony Gratton

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