A day in the Life...
Bluetooth at Home
By Garth Gutenberg
You wake up to the incessant beeping of your alarm clock. Your curtains, which
were closed while you were sleeping, are now wide open, letting the sun pour
in. Your bedroom light has come on, as have the hallway and bathroom lights.
You reach over and hit the snooze button, granting you a meager 9 more minutes
of sleep. Just as your alarm clock quiets itself your curtains begin to close
again. The stream of lights from bedroom to bathroom shuts off leaving darkness
in its wake.
When you finally arise you make your way to the bathroom. As you walk down the
hallway you hear the coffee pot begin brewing and the stereo turns on. The
sound of your morning radio show pours into the bathroom, ready to accompany
you on your routine. As part of your dressing routine you put on your Bluetooth
headset. "TV, news" you say. Your radio is muted and your television is turned
on to your favorite morning news show. You grab yourself a coffee and sit down
for a few minutes of morning relaxation. Your cell phone rings, but it's in the
other room, still on the charger. "Hello?" you say into your headset. The
television is muted and the call answered. You talk to the caller for a minute,
and just as you are about to hang up, your landline rings. You end your cell
phone call and say, "Answer phone." Your headset picks up the call coming in on
your landline. The television remains muted. During the conversation you need
to reference something in an encyclopedia, so you turn to Google. You pick up
your web pad and surf away. When you hang up from the call, the sound on your
TV comes back on. You finish your coffee and head out the door. It closes and
locks behind you as the coffee maker, television and lights shut off and the
security system is armed.
In the scenario described above, every device has one thing in common -
Bluetooth. These devices talk to each other and are aware of each other's
presence. It is as though they are sentient. When your alarm clock turns on it
sends a signal to your curtains, opening them, and to your lights, turning them
on. When you hit the snooze button it sends another signal telling them to
close and turn off. In the hallway there is a Bluetooth enabled motion sensor.
It has already received the wake-up signal from your alarm clock, so it just
sits and waits until it sees you walk by. At this point it tells your coffee
maker to start brewing and your stereo to turn on. Your stereo communicates to
various Bluetooth-enabled speakers placed around your house, following you from
room to room via Bluetooth motion sensors.
Your headset is paired with both your cell phone and a multi-function access
point such as JazzBlueTM.
Your voice commands are sent to the access point and it executes them. "TV"
sends a command from the access point to your television, turning it on. "News"
sends a preprogrammed channel to the television. When your cell phone rings,
your headset automatically establishes a connection to it for you to issue
voice commands. When you say "Hello" and answer the call, your access point
issues the appropriate muting signals to any devices that are currently
outputting sound. When your landline rings, it is routed through your Bluetooth
access point and your headset establishes the appropriate connection for you.
The web pad you pick up could have either a Bluetooth or a Wi-Fi connection to
your high-speed gateway. If that Internet connection were to fail however, only
Bluetooth would allow you to use the same device to establish a data connection
over your cell phone as a backup. When all telephone calls have ceased, any
device that was previously outputting sound resumes doing so, thanks to the
access point. When you leave, a combination of motion sensors and a
Bluetooth-enabled door lock tell your access point that you've left which
relays an Off command to your coffee maker and television, and an On command to
your security system. You could even go so far as to have a Bluetooth-enabled
passkey that did not require you to insert a key into a lock, but rather just
enter the vicinity with the device. This key could be any Bluetooth device
including your cell phone, headset, PDA or watch.
Is all of this possible today? It is possible to do everything that I mentioned
above today, but you'd have to use a lot more than just Bluetooth to do it. You
would be using as many as a dozen different technologies and you would probably
need a PhD in Electrical Engineering. The question then becomes what can be
done today with Bluetooth, and where are the gaps? I will try to break it down
by device type and cite a few examples of each as they exist.
Clock
The Bluetooth alarm clock is such a simple concept, yet to my knowledge nothing
of the sort exists. If all of the clocks in your home were Bluetooth-enabled
you would never have to set one again. You would never have to change the
microwave clock during daylight savings. The wake-up alarm that you set on one
clock would be transmitted throughout your home so that other devices that are
set to perform functions when you start your day (or at any other time) will do
so. This also applies to wristwatches, of which none have yet been
Bluetooth-enabled.
Home Automation and Security
Home Automation is an area in which I am very excited to see Bluetooth making an
appearance. For years Home Automation enthusiasts have had to deal with X-10
and other wired technologies. X-10 is a protocol designed for Home Automation
which allows home electronics and appliances, attached to X-10 transmitters, to
communicate through your home's electrical wiring. Some proprietary RF
implementations have been created, but there hasn't been much adoption. With
Bluetooth we have a global wireless standard, which has low power consumption
and is perfect for Home Automation. So far the only company to even mention
entering this arena is Hassnet with its JazzBlueTM
device. In addition to its access point functionality, JazzBlueTM
boasts Home Automation modules that will behave much like X-10 does today,
perhaps even using the X-10 protocol over Bluetooth. I look forward to seeing
this in practice. Another device that provides an X-10 gateway is the
Blue-X from Roving Networks. It provides an X-10 gateway from either a
Bluetooth device or wired Ethernet. The Blue-X communicates with standard X-10
modules that are commonly available.
There are both advantages and disadvantages to using Bluetooth modules to
replace X-10. Since Bluetooth requires very little power consumption and
usually runs on batteries, a module could be put anywhere, including outdoors,
whereas an X-10 module requires a power outlet or other wired power source.
This simplifies installation, especially for people who rent or do not wish to
rewire their homes. On the other hand, if a module has mechanical parts that
draw extra power, such as a motorized drape system, it will require an external
power source anyway; though I'd like to see solar power introduced in a device
like that. Bluetooth is also more reliable than X-10, including native error
correction. With Bluetooth you don't have to worry about dirty power, bad
wiring or line noise, and its error correction and frequency hopping overcome
most airborne interference.
Home Security is following suit and as of yet only the JazzBlue has made an
entrance into this market. The convenience of Bluetooth in a security device
such as a door lock would be amazing. Is Bluetooth's innate security mechanism
enough to prevent thieves from walking up to your door with a Bluetooth laptop
and "picking" your lock, or is additional encryption and security required to
sit on top of the Bluetooth stack? If additional software is required, it will
break the concept of using any device as a key. If the lock itself includes
some type of "intrusion detection", the intrinsic security should be
sufficient. While any wireless technology is subject to potential hacking, this
type of lock would be at least as secure as conventional key locks, and
Bluetooth would provide greater security than typical garage door openers,
which often allow entrance into the main part of the home.
Home Entertainment
All television, stereo, DVD and other component device manufacturers READ THIS:
Infrared is dead! Bluetooth is the future. Embrace it. Who needs line of sight
and other restrictions imposed by Infrared? Without this, people will need tiny
Bluetooth-to-IR repeaters scattered around their homes - but that's not really
enough. Infrared is not stateful, i.e. it doesn't know if a device is on or
off. Also, in the case of home entertainment devices it is a one-way
transmission. With Bluetooth we can finally have intelligent automation that
will allow us to "turn the TV off" rather than just changing its state and
simply hoping that we turned it off. This may not seem like much if you're
sitting in front of the television watching its state change, but consider the
following scenario:
You are working late at the office and there's a television show you're going to
miss. You decide to record it. You have the capability to use a web browser to
connect to your home and control any device you like. If your DVR supported
Bluetooth, you could just turn it on and start recording. If it were already on
it would remain on and begin recording when you told it to. With only infrared,
you have to know what state your DVR was already in. If you "turn it on" and
start recording, but it was already on, you've now turned it off. Admittedly,
there are devices you can put on the power lines to check if your DVR is
drawing a signal, but this is where having the aforementioned PhD comes in
handy.
So please… Sony, Panasonic, LG and everyone else, I implore you to embrace the
future and help to simplify our lives with Bluetooth. At this point I am not
aware of any Bluetooth-enabled Home Entertainment devices. I am not aware of
any Bluetooth-to-IR repeaters either, but as Bluetooth becomes more prevalent
in Home Automation I'm sure that these devices aren't far behind.
The alternative today is to use a Home Theater PC instead of multiple
component-type devices. This allows all of your Home Entertainment needs to be
serviced from a PC that would, of course, be Bluetooth-enabled. Many
manufacturers are releasing PCs running Microsoft's Windows XP Media Center
Edition, which wraps this experience up into a nice package; though a Bluetooth
dongle is still required. Alternatively, you can just build your own using
products like SnapStreamPVS or
ShowShifter.
Multi-Function Access Point
A basic Bluetooth access point provides LAN access for Bluetooth-enabled
devices. A multi-function access point provides LAN access as well as a variety
of other access types over a Bluetooth connection. The most robust product yet
to enter this arena is the Hassnet JazzBlueTM. Not only does this product
provide LAN access, but it also provides PSTN connections (landline), Home
Automation and Security modules, a built-in web server and the ability to
automatically place outgoing calls if triggered to do so by a security alert.
This device is the Swiss Army knife of access points. Having PSTN access means
that with a Bluetooth-enabled cell phone or headset, you can place calls over
your landline so that you don't incur per-minute charges as you do with your
cell. The built-in web server and Home Automation/Security modules rank this
device with some of the more powerful Home Control Units costing as much as
US$1000. It will be interesting to see what kind of price tag Hassnet applies
to the JazzBlue. Unfortunately, the JazzBlue does not provide Wi-Fi access, but
with the cost of Wi-Fi routers and access points steadily dropping, this isn't
such a concern.
Depending on your needs, a PC could suffice in this area. But if you plan on
using it to issue Home Automation/Security commands from a Bluetooth device
you'd better don your Engineer's cap, as this is a long and ugly road.
Headset
There are many viable alternatives in this arena, and it really depends on what
you're looking for and your preference when wearing a headset. Currently, the
smallest by far is the Nextlink BlueSpoon,
but at US$270 it is also one of the most expensive. It fits right inside your
ear and locks in place with a spring. For around US$100 you can purchase the
Jabra FreeSpeak which has an earpiece that goes inside your ear canal
while the rest of it wraps around the top of your ear. It has a tiny arm that
extends underneath your ear containing the microphone. If you prefer an
over-the-ear model, you can choose from just about anyone. Motorola, Ericsson
and Nokia all have very different looking models, but all are over the ear with
a boom. Another innovative design is
Sound ID's Personal Sound System. Using their proprietary technology
they are able to adjust incoming sounds for maximum clarity, customized to the
listening ability of the user. They have a
demo on their site that is well worth listening to.
If you're looking for a stereo headset that allows you to listen to music and
provides two-way communication there is currently only one alternative. The
Openbrain Bluetooth Wireless Stereo Headset is a truly innovative piece
of equipment. Its features include a microphone, stereo speakers and a built-in
MP3/WMA/SBC player with up to 128 MB of memory. The reason that they've
included an MP3 player is due to a limitation of Bluetooth. Bluetooth's
bandwidth is limited to around 700 kbps synchronous transfer, which means that
it delivers around 350 kbps in each direction. The audio stream that is
delivered when a 128 kbps MP3 is decoded or a CD is played is around 150 KB/s
or 1200 kbps. What this means is that Bluetooth does not provide enough
bandwidth to deliver a pure, stereo audio stream. Openbrain has compensated for
this by providing a built-in audio decoder that can stream the audio file
itself, thus conserving bandwidth. It also doubles as a portable MP3 player
(contained in the headphones). The standalone MP3 player has virtually no form
factor at all as you are wearing it on your head. This product is truly an
ingenious design. My only problem with the product is, well, its color: it is a
bright yellow. Personally, I prefer anything I'm wearing on my head all day to
be a little more understated. Having said that, I'm sure it won't stop me from
getting my hands - er, ears - on one of these once the 128 MB version becomes
available.
Cell Phone
Bluetooth has made definite headway in the cell phone market as more and more
handsets are being released Bluetooth-enabled. Which cell phone is the best?
That really depends on your preferences and is outside the scope of this
article. It is a constantly changing market and 2003 will introduce myriad new
Bluetooth-enabled cell phones. All I can say on this subject is to keep reading
www.BluetoothNews.com for future product reviews ;)
Input Devices
Bluetooth input devices have begun to hit the market. Logitech has a
Bluetooth mouse/laser-pointer and Microsoft has a Bluetooth mouse and
keyboard. Both of these devices have been done before using proprietary RF.
They are not very innovative. Enter the SenseboardTM.
This device, by Senseboard Technologies AB, is an amazing piece of equipment
for us touch-typists. It is a pair of "clamps" that attach to the inside of
each hand between the thumb and index finger to capture your finger movements.
It is a go-anywhere keyboard. You don't need to unfold it or set it on a flat
surface, and it is Bluetooth-enabled so it works with any device that supports
Bluetooth as an input method.
Now let me discuss game controllers. I am a gamer. PC, console or PDA - the
platform doesn't matter. For the moment I am going to assume that you also
enjoy the occasional game. I'm sure that you have developed likes and dislikes
to the various controllers and input methods that you've used. Some are far
more intuitive than others, or you have more experience with one. Wouldn't it
be great if you could pick one controller that works well and use it on all
games on all devices? Admittedly, this wouldn't always work as some games may
require specific input methods, but it would be nice to have the option.
Instead you are forced to adapt to every device that you play on. Why haven't
we seen any Bluetooth-enabled game controllers yet? I have seen it argued that
Bluetooth's latency is too great for gaming, where latency requirements are
generally less than 30 ms. But according to the Blueooth HID profile
specification, "The implementation of the Bluetooth link should add no more
than 5 ms additional latency between the user input and the application
response over a wired implementation when the Bluetooth HID is in the active
state". This should prove more than sufficient for gaming, and is great news
for the gaming industry. These devices will be slow to arrive, but they will
come. STMicroelectronics will be producing a complete reference design
supporting the Bluetooth HID (Human Interface Device) profile (See
related article.) Personally, I can't wait to get my hands on a
Bluetooth-enabled game controller, because trust me, there's nothing less
enjoyable than driving a Porsche 911 down the Autobahn
with a stylus.
Bluetooth has the potential to revolutionize the home. Combined with its
adoption in the mobile market, Bluetooth could finally be the technology that
allows all of our electronics to work together seamlessly and without cables.
The possibilities are endless and will open people's minds to ideas that they
have never dreamed of.
As all good things must come to an end, so must your day. After returning late
from work you come home exhausted and fall asleep in front of the TV. When you
awake a few hours later you are so tired you can barely open your eyes and all
you want to do is crawl into bed. You gather all of your strength and somehow
manage to pull yourself off the couch. Slowly you drag yourself to the bedroom,
TV still blaring behind you and your home lit up like a solar eclipse. As you
crawl into bed you utter one last word before removing your headset,
"Goodnight". At this, your TV and lights turn off, your front door is locked
and your security system is armed. You hear the hum of a small motor as your
curtains reclaim your privacy, and your alarm clock is reset to wake you in the
morning. Life is good.
