Blue Tooth Beated By Wi-Fi Direct Technology
The Wi-Fi Alliance has recently launched a new technology called Wi-Fi Direct that will enable electronic devices and gadgets to communicate and connect to each other without the need of a network or network access point. The Wi-Fi Alliance have started certifying the first batch of gadgets with the new Wi-Fi Direct technology a couple days back. With this new technology, users can now do things like share photos with their digital cameras or play video games on their game consoles/mobile devices with their friends without a wireless hotspot or Internet connection
We designed Wi-Fi Direct to unleash a wide variety of applications which require device connections, but do not need the Internet or even a traditional network..Wi-Fi Direct empowers users to connect devices — when, where and how they want to — and our certification program delivers products that work well together, regardless of the brand.
The Wi-Fi Direct protocol is similar with regular Wi-Fi but different in some ways.It doesn’t require a network or network access point. Also with this new protocol, users can browse nearby Wi-Fi Direct enabled devices and connect to them with just a push of a button and have the connection automatically encrypted.WIth the introduction of Wi-Fi Direct, it can’t be helped that there are many speculations that this new technology/protocol would surpass or kill Bluetooth because it has a wider range and faster speed. However, there are certain issues in the Wi-Fi protocol like the use of a single channel, interference and Wi-Fi Direct being a software-only protocol that could prevent it from doing so. I’m not an expert in this so I’ll leave this to those who know more about it. If you want to read a side-by-side comparison of Wi-Fi Direct and Bluetooth 4.0.
Watch The Blue Tooth Direct Technology Demonstration Video.
The Wi-Fi Alliance has recently launched a new technology called Wi-Fi Direct that will enable electronic devices and gadgets to communicate and connect to each other without the need of a network or network access point. The Wi-Fi Alliance have started certifying the first batch of gadgets with the new Wi-Fi Direct technology a couple days back. With this new technology, users can now do things like share photos with their digital cameras or play video games on their game consoles/mobile devices with their friends without a wireless hotspot or Internet connection
We designed Wi-Fi Direct to unleash a wide variety of applications which require device connections, but do not need the Internet or even a traditional network..Wi-Fi Direct empowers users to connect devices — when, where and how they want to — and our certification program delivers products that work well together, regardless of the brand.
The Wi-Fi Direct protocol is similar with regular Wi-Fi but different in some ways.It doesn’t require a network or network access point. Also with this new protocol, users can browse nearby Wi-Fi Direct enabled devices and connect to them with just a push of a button and have the connection automatically encrypted.WIth the introduction of Wi-Fi Direct, it can’t be helped that there are many speculations that this new technology/protocol would surpass or kill Bluetooth because it has a wider range and faster speed. However, there are certain issues in the Wi-Fi protocol like the use of a single channel, interference and Wi-Fi Direct being a software-only protocol that could prevent it from doing so. I’m not an expert in this so I’ll leave this to those who know more about it. If you want to read a side-by-side comparison of Wi-Fi Direct and Bluetooth 4.0.
Watch The Blue Tooth Direct Technology Demonstration Video.
Wi-Fi Direct? I thought Wi-Fi devices already had an ad hoc mode.
In Wi-Fi Alliance terms, ad hoc refers to an aging Wi-Fi device-to-device transfer method that was painful to set up and maxed out at data transfer speeds around 11 Mbps. Wi-Fi Direct, on the other hand, promises regular Wi-Fi speeds of up to 250 Mbps. Wi-Fi Direct also promises to be much easier to set up and use than ad hoc.
What's up with Bluetooth 4.0. Didn't we just get Bluetooth 3.0?
Bluetooth 4.0 is an upgrade from Bluetooth 3.0 that includes a power-saving feature called "low-energy technology." Basically, Bluetooth 4.0 is three Bluetooth specs in one. Bluetooth 4.0 not only uses the new low-energy technology, but also relies on high-speed data transfers introduced in Bluetooth 3.0 and so-called classic Bluetooth technology found in older Bluetooth specifications. The tricky thing is that Bluetooth 4.0's low-energy technology is not compatible with existing Bluetooth devices. However, that doesn't mean your new Bluetooth 4.0-equipped smartphone wouldn't be able to work with a Bluetooth 2.1 headset.
It means that a device that only uses Bluetooth's low-energy technology wouldn't be able to talk to an older Bluetooth device. Let's say you have a Bluetooth pedometer that only has Bluetooth 4.0's low-energy feature baked in (and not the other parts of the Bluetooth 4.0 spec). You wouldn't be able to transfer via Bluetooth the pedometer's data to an older laptop equipped with Bluetooth 2.1.
It should be pointed out, however, that manufacturers could incorporate low-energy technology into a newer device using Bluetooth 2.1 or Bluetooth 3.0. So the backward compatibility problem only affects older Bluetooth devices, and not the actual Bluetooth specifications.
Bluetooth 4.0 vs. Wi-Fi Direct: Speed
Wi-Fi Direct promises device-to-device transfer speeds of up to 250Mbps, while Bluetooth 4.0 promises speeds similar to Bluetooth 3.0 of up to 25Mbps. Both Bluetooth 4.0 and Wi-Fi Direct use the 802.11 networking standard to reach their maximum speeds. But whether Bluetooth or Wi-Fi Direct speeds will run as fast as promised in the real world remains to be seen. In other words, don't believe the hype and keep an eye on independent data speed tests to see how each specification performs.
Security
Bluetooth 4.0 is using AES 128-bit encryption, while Wi-Fi Direct relies on WPA2 security, which uses AES 256-bit encryption. Both forms use key-based encryption and authentication methods, and both offer enough security for the average consumer.
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