Nokia’s Wibree to Play Nice with Bluetooth

We’ve heard of this Wibree thing before. Then, it was a concept; now, it’s real.

Nokia announced Wibree last fall as a competitor to Bluetooth. Now, with a few months to think about it, the Finnish phonemaker has decided to go into business with Bluetooth. The idea of Wibree is to bring wireless technology to portable devices that operate on a much lower frequency than Bluetooth’s 6 GHz. Because of that, power consumption is lower and battery recharge rate is lower as well. (Data rate is lower as well, but then the demand for data in these smaller devices is smaller as well.)

The radio link range of Wibree is 30 feet, much wider than Bluetooth’s. That’s good because your Wibree-enabled wristwatch won’t be able to synchronize with your Bluetooth-enabled phone, unless the phone is the one doing the calling.