Today is the day that Bluetooth changes forever. As expected, the Bluetooth Special Interest Group (SIG) has gone official with their latest Bluetooth 3.0+High Speed spec, ushering in a new age of Bluetooth-connected devices transferring data at an impressive 24Mbps. The new Bluetooth 3.0+HS standard allows for devices, namely smartphones, to quickly pair with other devices using the Bluetooth protocol. And, for those devices equipped with WiFi radios, “+HS” allows for high-speed data transfers that would make Bluetooth 2.1+EDR run home crying.
Bluetooth 3.0+HS will use Bluetooth technology to handle all the device pairing duties, switching to the 802.11 (WiFi) protocol for large file transfers. Of course, that means both paired devices need to have integrated 802.11 WiFi radios in order to take advantage of Bluetooth 3.0’s faster file transfer speeds. Otherwise, file transfers will be handled the good old-fashioned way – over Bluetooth. Bluetooth 3.0+HS is backwards compatible with Bluetooth 2.1+EDR, so you can be sure that all your not-so-cutting-edge gizmos will still play nice with each other.
We’re told to expect to see the new 3.0+HS tech hitting market in 9-12 months’ time. A long wait, to be sure, but likely well worth it!
[Via: Bluetooth]