The Wibree Forum, which promotes the ultra low power wireless technology developed by Nokia, will be merged with The Bluetooth Special Interest Group (SIG).
The Wibree specification will become part of the Bluetooth specification as an ultra low power Bluetooth technology. Because Wibree addresses devices with very low battery capacity and can be easily integrated with Bluetooth technology, it will round out Bluetooth technology’s wireless Personal Area Networking (PAN) offering and strengthen the technology’s ability to provide wireless connectivity for smaller devices.
“By including or referencing other wireless technologies like ultra wideband for high speed applications, near field communication (NFC) for association and now Wibree for ultra low power applications under the well-established Bluetooth profiles, we are opening up a host of new applications and functionality while keeping the user experience consistent,” said Michael Foley, Ph. D. executive director, Bluetooth SIG. “Our members have been asking for an ultra low power Bluetooth solution. With Nokia’s innovative development and contribution to the Bluetooth specification with Wibree, we will be able to deliver this in approximately one year.”http://www.nokia.com
- In October 2006, Nokia introduced its “Wibree” as an open industry initiative for extending local connectivity to small devices, much like Bluetooth. Target applications include mobile devices or personal computers, and small, button cell battery power devices such as watches, wireless keyboards, toys and sports sensors. The Wibree radio technology, which was developed by Nokia Research Center, consumes only a fraction of the power compared to other such radio technologies, enabling smaller and less costly implementations. Key aspects of Wibree include:
* Operates in 2.4 GHz ISM band
* Physical layer bit rate of 1 Mbps
* Link distance of 5-10 meters.
* Optimized for applications requiring extremely low power consumption, small size and low cost.
* Provides ultra low power idle mode operation, simple device discovery and reliable point-to-multipoint data transfer with advanced power-save and encryption functionalities.
* Link layer provides means to schedule Wibree traffic in between Bluetooth transmissions.
* Can be implemented either as stand-alone chip or as Bluetooth-Wibree dual-mode chip. The small devices like watches and sports sensors will be based on stand-alone chip whereas Bluetooth devices will take benefit of the dual-mode solution, extending Bluetooth device connectivity to new range of smallest devices.