Hybrid headset makes public debut

Bluetooth is about to get a touch of green. CSR has given its first public demonstration of a headset powered by technology that uses only a tenth of the energy consumed by its standard counterparts.

(Credit: CSR)

The technology, previously known as "Wibree," was developed and licensed by Nokia a few years ago and is finally preparing to come to market. Developed for short distances--from handset to ear, for instance--the system transfers data much faster than standard Bluetooth connections and therefore uses less energy.

CSR's version of the "ultra-low-power" Bluetooth system was shown at a medical conference in Luxembourg yesterday, according to SlashPhone. How low, you ask? The company claims that that devices can run up to 10 years on one button cell battery. By then, of course, we'll either have broken or lost the headset anyway.

[sillychips]

I think CSR press release was intentionally made to confuse us. The chip that was announced was a dual-mode chip. Dual mode in the sense that it can operate in regular Bluetooth mode, and in the ULP or ultra low power mode. The 10x power improvement was for the ULP mode. This is not for your regular headset use. ULP is WiBree and it's intended for sensors, such as the nike+ipod product line, or timex heart monitor and so on. In other words it's for application where low power comes first, and data rate second. In fact Bluetooth ULP max data rate is only 1Mbit/s, which is barely enough for audio.<br /><br /><a class="jive-link-external" href="http://sillychips.wordpress.com/" target="_newWindow">http://sillychips.wordpress.com/</a>