Bluetooth to survive amid Web-enabled devices

In an phone interview with ZDNet Asia, Marc Einstein, industry manager for Asia-Pacific, ICT Practice at Frost & Sullivan, said that during Bluetooth and Wi-Fi may exist on overlapping devices, both technologies have different functions.

Bluetooth is used broadly speaking on phones as a peer-to-peer application for users to transfer small amounts of data, just as phone numbers and photographs, he explained. He added that the reason Bluetooth is successful is because it is available even on feature phones and users can use this connectivity option to transfer files even without Wi-Fi or 3G connection.

The other hand

On the other hand, Wi-Fi is employed on smartphones to transfer larger packets of data, just as Voice over Internet Protocol phone calls, when the user does not want to incur data charges, he said.

In an e-mail interview with ZDNet Asia, Brian O'Rourke, principal analyst at In-Stat, elaborated on the differences between the two technologies. He pointed out that Bluetooth is a personal area network, which is best for a very short range of about 10m and low data rate applications just as phone-to-headset and phone-to-personal computer connections.

In contrast, Wi-Fi is a local area networking innovation, which can connect devices over longer distances just as throughout a house, said O'Rourke.

Wi-Fi Direct vs. Bluetooth 3.0Even though classic Bluetooth, which O'Rourke identified as versions 1.0 and 2.0, differs from Wi-Fi, its newer sibling Bluetooth 3.0 may face a "significant threat" from Wi-Fi Direct research, he said.

Peer-to-peer connection even without Wi-Fi

He explained that Wi-Fi-Direct enables two devices to make a peer-to-peer connection even without Wi-Fi. Opposite, version 3.0 of the PAN innovation allows large file transfers by connecting the devices using Bluetooth, however over a Wi-Fi network, he said.

Despite Wi-Fi Direct's challenge to Bluetooth 3.0, O'Rourke reiterated that classic Bluetooth will remain a significant competitor because of its dominance as a PAN innovation.

E-mail interview with ZDNet Asia

In an e-mail interview with ZDNet Asia, Mark Leigh, president of Asia-Pacific at Jabra, said the company uses Bluetooth because most manufacturers include the innovation in their devices.

Aside from the popularity of the innovation, Leigh noted that Bluetooth's relatively low power consumption and small framework as well help in shaping the form factors of the devices.