Bluetooth and Wibree wed

Nokia's new short-range wireless technology called Wibree will now become part of the Bluetooth specification as an ultra low power Bluetooth technology. The Bluetooth Special Interest Group and Nokia announced that the Wibree forum, the group specifying Nokia's technology, will be merged with the Bluetooth SIG.

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, the Bluetooth SIG said. Nokia introduced Wibree in October, raising concerns that the technology would compete with existing technologies. Nokia officials were adamant that Wibree is not designed to compete with existing technologies.

Wibree requires a fraction of the power that other radio techs do, so it is ideal for small devices. Nokia has suggested that Wibree could be integrated into mobile phones, PCs, small watches or wireless keyboards. Wibree, which utilizes dynamic packet lengths, is an ideal solution in situations where bursty data transfers are needed, while Bluetooth is better equipped to handle larger data loads, making the two complementary.

For more about the combo:
- check out this release