Cavities appear in Bluetooth

Early adopters of Bluetooth are all too often disappointed to find that the standard that promised to connect their phones, computers and PDAs doesn't quite deliver.

A silicon.com reader bought a Bluetooth-enabled dongle from 3Com in the hope that he would be able to connect his computer to his Ericsson T-68 phone via the USB port.

The two devices wouldn't connect, despite both being certified by the appropriate standards body - the Bluetooth Special Interest Group (SIG).

A source suggested that this was the result of missing drivers for the 3Com device, though they were unable to return our requests for detailed comment on the problem.

Two incompatible devices don't necessarily mean that the standard is worthless, but it is quite a widespread problem - it's a subject that frequently recurs in Bluetooth discussion groups.

Recently, at a wireless equipment demo there happened to be a Compaq iPaq and an HP Jornada on the desk. Both were Bluetooth-enabled, but they couldn't talk to each other - strangely appropriate, we feel, but not uncommon.

Michael Wall, wireless research analyst at Frost and Sullivan, said: "We often hear of Bluetooth devices that don't work with each other and it's because they support different usage profiles or have missing drivers."

The number of compatibility problems has fallen with the widespread adoption of the 1.1 version of the standard last summer, said Wall. But until then different manufacturers were adding a further source of errors by using different and incompatible versions of the standard.

But the day when it will be possible to link all electronic devices seamlessly into a network - which was the original raison d'être of the Bluetooth standard - is still a long way off.

Wall said: "It is a major short-term inhibitor of the adoption of Bluetooth that these devices won't interoperate. The SIG and the vendors need to develop a policy for dealing with this. They should be making a bigger effort to tell buyers which devices are likely to work with which others."