Bluetooth 4.0-equipped devices to ship in fourth quarter

[Matthew DeCarlo]

Devices equipped with Bluetooth 4.0 should arrive later this year, according to the Bluetooth SIG. The outfit's Michael Foley says electronics such as smartphones, headsets and computers will ship with Bluetooth 4.0 in the fourth quarter.

The most significant improvement over 3.0 is said to be a new low-energy specification for transmitting small blurts of data over short ranges. That will make Bluetooth 4.0 suitable for watches, pedometers and other tiny gadgets that run on coin-cell batteries.

However, Foley notes that users may not notice battery life improvements for long-range or continuous data communication. Bluetooth 4.0 will consume around the same amount of power as Bluetooth 3.0 while syncing smartphones with notebooks or listening to music with wireless headphones, for instance.

The new spec will have all of its predecessor's capabilities, including the high-speed Wi-Fi feature introduced with Bluetooth 3.0, which lets devices connect to wireless networks where data can be transferred at up to 25Mb/s.

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https://www.techspot.com/news/38118-bluetooth-40-equipped-devices-to-ship-in-fourth-quarter.html

 

[vhick]

Wow! How advanced! In my country, Bluetooth 3.0 is start to introduce and here comes the new bluetooth 4.0.

 

[InsaneVr6]

So it seems like USB 4.0 won't really effect the PC market like 3.0 is. Personally I would call this USB 3.5 or something.

Save the USB 4.0 name for when we can transfer 1gb/s.

 

[Zenphic]

Honestly, I don't have any bluetooth devices under my wing. Hopefully we'll see more BlueT products in the future.

 

[Wendig0]

4.0 already? I haven't even seen the 3.0 devices yet. Everything I've seen advertised still uses the old 2.0 spec.

 

[Rick]

So it seems like USB 4.0 won't really effect the PC market like 3.0 is. Personally I would call this USB 3.5 or something.

Save the USB 4.0 name for when we can transfer 1gb/s.

I'm interested to know how Bluetooth 3.0 affected the PC market. It's been out for less than a year and I haven't seen a single device that uses it.

Oh wait, you were talking about USB....

 

[Yoda8232]

Woah Bluetooth is advancing too fast, anyways this means we can have Bluetooth watches connected to our phones and answer calls Bond style, SICK MUCH!?

 

[jacob007]

Sooooo?

From what i can tell this is more like Bluetooth 3.5 at most, or as someone posted earlier, 2.5 maybe i haven´t seen a major advancement in bluetooth and i don´t see it being very widespread, sure some TVs and other devices but nothing revolutionary.

 

[buendia]

Are data transmitting speeds any better?
I hope so. Not sure which version I have but more speed is welcomed.

 

[zaidpirwani]

So correct me if I am wrong, but this improvement will only benefit those devices which connect for a very short time for very less data transfer...... then what is the FUSS about it....

 

[fref]

Not much to be excited about. It's just a minor update which, in my opinion, should not be called 4.0. Unless we don't have the full story here. Anyway, small improvements are better than no improvement at all.

 

[walliot]

I agree it should be called Bluetooth 3.5. Shouldn't every integer come with a performance inprovment instead of just longer life? Looks like these guys learnt a thing or two from Nvidia. There goes the whole naming problem again...

 

[Vrmithrax]

Bluetooth keeps moving forward, revision after revision, but I'm still waiting for the Bluetooth revolution that was supposed to occur. So far it's only really popular in phones, but I'd like to see it implemented more widely in computer input devices as well - get away from the 2.4 GHz wireless crap that requires those stupid dongles, and start implementing Bluetooth already! The BT units that are available are typically far more expensive than they should be, because Bluetooth isn't as widespread as it could be - prices would drive down as more similar products hit the shelves.

 

[Richy2k9]

hello ...

so many wireless devices & technologies & so many possibilities. I would love to see most devices interconnecting & remove all the cables making my system so weird & archaic. hope with such advances, this will soon be a reality.

cheers!

 

[Fotis]

Bluetooth v.4.0? In my VAIO laptop I use (FW-21m) , bought last year, I use 2.1 and I didn't even heard for 3.0! Does anybody now if there is any firmware update for using Bluetooth v 4.0 or there is no hardware compatibility?

 

[pyari]

do we really need bluetooth.......all we need is wi fi.......if this isn't present then we can think about the bluetooth.......someday.....

 

[levar]

yes I kinda think we do especially since while the cell phones do not capsize with Wi-Fi, Bluetooth still is the better option look on smart phones for example iPhone using wifi for a couple hours will drain the battery like hell, anyways its nice to see the new improvements even though its not a big difference from v3.0