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Linux Running Bluetooth Access Points 45

Posted by Hemos from the demoware dept.
quick_dry_3 writes: "A few days ago I saw Red-M give the first demo of their Bluetooth access point, basically its an x86 Linux box with bluetooth, looks pretty cool too - the extenders look like silver soap holders, they only have to be given power if they're inside main units range. Range was claimed to be 100m from each unit, they demoed it with a PalmV + Bluetooth PC card. Pricey at just under US$3000 though ... They reckon an 802.11 card flattened a Palm in 2.5 minutes, but Bluetooth gave only a slight dent in normal life."
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Linux Running Bluetooth Access Points More

Linux Running Bluetooth Access Points

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  • From www.bluetooth.com:

    The Bluetooth Specification is a de facto standard containing the information required to ensure that diverse devices supporting the Bluetooth wireless technology can communicate with each other worldwide.

    The Core part specifies components such as the radio, baseband, link manager, service discovery protocol, transport layer, and interoperability with different communication protocols. The Profiles part specifies the protocols and procedures required for different types of Bluetooth applications.

    Download these specifications from: here [bluetooth.com]

    Grab some white papers from: here [bluetooth.com]

    Cheers!

  • That's odd, I thought both IEEE 1394 and USB were open. Of course I've been having a hell of a time finding some good info on going about implementing both hardware and software of the former. But then I didn't want to spend close to 100 on a spec book from ieee, and I'm not an EE so I find many of the discussions I've found so far opaque. -Daniel

  • I wouldn't panic about the high prices just yet. It's pretty common for companies to price the "engineering" copies of their devices pretty high. They're expensive to make, and are intended for early developers who need them to build commercial products. The high price helps cover the high initial costs and, perhaps more importantly, helps ration the devices out to people who are serious about building profitable products.

    The more interesting number is the $8/unit for quantity > 1 million. That's not quite at the $5 target, but it's at least in the ballpark.

  • This isn't really that surprising. IBM has always had great vision on new ideas, but couldn't market it to save its life.

    Look at OS/2 Warp as an example. Always was years beyond anything microsoft did (or has yet to do, even).

    Now that OS/2 is not being sold anymore, IBM is using linux as its desktop 'solution' (remember, IBM is a solutions provider). This is a very good thing, IMHO. All the things IBM did ahead of everyone else in OS/2 will now be done ahead of everyone else in linux.

  • While IEEE 1394 is an open standard, the trademark "Firewire" is held by a company (I think it's Apple). That company requires you to pay a licensing fee for each use of "Firewire", and it's not cheap (something like $1/use).
    Ah, here it [eetimes.com] is. As shown on this [slashdot.org] Slashdot newsbit.
  • IEEE 1394 is a standard, but I think the word open is a bit misleading. There are quite a number of patents held in relationship to FireWire (Apple's name for the technology). These patents have been placed in a holding company by the name of <a href="http://www.1394la.com/">1394 LA's Patent Portfolio License organization</a>, by a number of companies who hold them (yes Apple is a major member of this patent pool). Any company that is going to put FireWire devices bus buys the right to use the technology from this holding comany for $.25 a device, regardles of number ports(actually use the patents behind the technology).

    I belive Apple's only requirement for the use of FireWire is that it have a Driver avalible for MacOS, and that that driver and device follow the specifications (have a valid ID, vendor, etc...), and be registered (simple process).

    There was a bru-ha-ha when Apple proposed a higher, per port, fee, but that never came to pass, and the change was never reported on Slashdot (*ahem*).

    On a related note, this standard is no more open than USB. There are very few makers of the USB controller silicon (*cough* *Intel* *cough*), and the maker of that standard makes it's mony by controlling the patents behind the implimentation of the standard. Sure you are free to make your own implimentation, but it is going to be damm difficult, and expensive, to do so without infringing on Intel patents... the 1394 consortium is just a bit more open/honest about it.
  • We're setting up a free wireless Metropolitan Area Network.

    interested?

    SeattleWireless [seattlewireless.net]

  • Let's take bluetooth and start using it like a wireless lan. Let's start extending the range over rediculous distances. And let's just forget about 802.11

  • Re:Open standard? (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Actually there are products shipping - a headset using Bluetooth technology, for example. Bluetooth seems to have some definate advantaged over 802.11 (lower power consumption, better design for small devices such has handhelds that will still scale well, wide industry support). 802.11 has it's uses, but really isn't even competing in the areas Bluetooth is aimed at (Bluetooth seems to be potentially *much* cheaper than most 802.11 short-range solutions).

  • They reckon an 802.11 card flattened a Palm in 2.5 minutes, but Bluetooth gave only a slight dent in normal life

    Now that's interesting. They reckon?? How about some facts? I'm not so sure I trust them reckoning about something that is pretty much competition.

    Here [symbol.com] is a Palm that is an 802.11 device. It runs for 9 to 10 hours with a bar code scanner and a web client running. The battery is 3.7V and 1400 mAH. A normal Palm has two 1150 mAH batteries in it, so the battery is not much bigger. I'm thinking that without the bar code scanner, it would last a lot longer.

    Definitely not 2.5 minutes.
  • But serial is kicking the crap out of parallel. How many serial devices do you have? How many serial? See!
  • pill bottle

    nearby

    sez dried frog on it

    take

    relax :)
  • This encapsulates two common misconceptions about Bluetooth. 1) Bluetooth is not a LAN. It is fow wire replacement. The primary profiles (headset, synchronization, serial device) support that assertion. An investigation of the piconet/scatternet architecture reveals just how inefficient Bluetooth would be at trying to route data through a network. In fact the spec reads more like the plan was to obstruct network functionality for the benefit of wire replacement functionality. Point to point punting of Audio and packet data fits easily and efficiently into Bluetooth. Routing does not. 2) You can't just stick a fat PA on the front and operate at 100s of meters. Part of the purpose is to allow many devices to interoperate. That is why the protocols are defined so much further up the stach than say 802.11. As a part of that, the 768kbps shared within a piconet may get pretty slow shared amongst a piconet. It would get stupidly slow shared between all the devices you could fit in 100s of meters (E.G.at a trade show). In addition, the high power devices sharing space with low power devices would lead to serious link budget imbalance in the RF. Rather like a pair of quiet guys trying to have a conversation at the front row of a moterhead concert. As far as the protocols go, they are not too open (the latest specs are available to the SIG signees , but don't worry, they're a boring read). However the IEEE are rewriting them as 802.15 and you'll find them to be better written. My advice, if you want to do Bluetooth protocol or application development is to concentrate on the upper layers (Above HCI), since the lower layers will get commoditized and componentized in due course and there is hardware involved, it won't be free anyway.
  • Imagine walking into an airport and instead of looking up at the TV screens you look down at your Palm organiser which shows you where your plane is boarding and that it's 5 minutes late. It knows the flight number because you told it and when you arrived at the airport you entered their Microlan and your Palm interroageted their systems.

    It gets even cooler. Imagine all the places a Bluetooth'ed device could save you time. Pretty much anywhere you stand in line and give basic information. The rent-a-car counter, any university office, Radio Shack (why do you need to know my phone number to sell me batteries?). You could have all of your relevant information entered or double-checked, so that all the person behind the counter has to do is hand you your keys/batteries/whatever.

    You could even use it at McDonald's to speed up the drive through...
    ---

  • Re:Great (Score:3)

    by interiot ( 50685 ) on Monday October 30, 2000 @09:48AM (#664941) Homepage
    Amen.

    Bluetooth is for PANs, not LANs. It's for devices with low memory and slow displays. Rule of thumb: Bluetooth is good for devices that use AAA batteries or less (base stations excepted, of course).
    --

  • Re:Open standard? (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    The licensing fee for FireWire is 25 for as many ports as you want. (Your source is 21 months old.) FireWire (aka IEEE 1394) never had the one dollar fee you are talking about and which was reported on slashdot without any follow-up. A one dollar fee per port was discussed but never implemented.

    Again, the fee to use the IP behind FireWire is 25 cents and can include as many ports as you want.
  • FYI - I was interested on how secure my cable network was (they advertise it as fast, friendly, and secure). I did a quick scan and found 73 of about 150 computers with open SMB. After checking these, 2 had C: shared and 1 had quicken and quickbook files openly avable for download. Don't be surprized - these results are average for cable networks.
  • "Turbolinux Inc., a developer of software based on the Linux operating system, announced on Monday that it has notified U.S. regulators of the proposed initial public offering of its common stock. Here's the link [forbes.com] to the news.
  • Please, Bluethooth is very free, but the delays are really annoying considering the large number of devices that are ready for massproduction. There are atleast 2 Companies, here in Kista/Sweden, which can launch a wide array of products when Bluetooth ships. One only wish Ericsson could get there act together and release there cool techs on time.
  • This is important, look at Red-M's reasons for choosing Linux.

    They are a spin off from Madge Networks who are a very technical company and who are Microsoft centric, and yet they choose Linux - with very good reasons.
  • The nice thing about linux is no-one is actuallyed tied to it. Instead they are clipped on with a nice big (safety interlocked, don't want anybody falling off:) emergency release. Trouble is, the release mechanism tends to get rusty from disuse.

    (sure, some try linux and decide that they don't like it, but that's the point: they're not trapped. Nor have they invested huge sums of money into the attempt (time, yes, but no more than any other solution))

    Bill - aka taniwha
    --

  • UPS access port. A nice feature. Wait, does this mean that they'll send wireless power too? To UPS-protect your roaming devices? ;-)
  • Man, don't you just HATE it when the power goes out? I swear, it just sucks. My TV remote stops working and everything..

    Hopefully, due to the distributed itch-scratching of OSS, someone will figger out a way to fix a black-out in software.. Cause, as it is now, every time the power goes out, my neighbors can hear me screaming and yelling at the damn TV, and know that "The &^%$ed PLAYBOY channel went off in the middle of a great f&^%$fest cause the *(&^&^%ing power went out! Fsck!" And I don't want them to even know that I have cable...

    The REAL jabber has the /. user id: 13196

  • No! This means the big ass brown planes and moving trucks can pull in and deliver your data. 1-5 days depending on what class of service you pay for....oh come on UPS, the package delivery people...oh never mind

  • What the... (Score:3)

    by AFCArchvile ( 221494 ) on Monday October 30, 2000 @08:46AM (#664951)
    "They reckon an 802.11 card flattened a Palm in 2.5 minutes, but Bluetooth gave only a slight dent in normal life."

    Wait a minute. Are they actually using these cards as intended or are they just whacking a Palm Pilot with the network adapters?

  • But these are technologies with different aims.

    802.11(whatever) was designed as a replacement for the ethernet wires that connect two PCs.
    Bluetooth was designed to replace the parallel, serial, IrDA and other short range low power links between devices.

    Note devices. One use for Bluetooth that the mobile phone makers Ericsson are touting is a cordless Bluetooh headset for your mobile phone, removing the transmitter from your brain and allowing easier movement etc. Another is Palm to phone connectivity, no more lining your Palm V's IrDA port up with that of your Nokia 7110 phone

    One of the great ideas - although wether it would ever take off or not is another matter is micro lans which allow broadcast environmental information to be displayed on compatible devices. Imagine walking into an airport and instead of looking up at the TV screens you look down at your Palm organiser which shows you where your plane is boarding and that it's 5 minutes late. It knows the flight number because you told it and when you arrived at the airport you entered their Microlan and your Palm interroageted their systems.

    All this would be possible with 802.11 but the hardware necessary and the power drain of a Medium ot long range protocol would make it bulky or impractacle(sp?).

  • What is the price of the bits? (Score:3)

    by Bazzargh ( 39195 ) on Monday October 30, 2000 @08:47AM (#664953)
    I've been looking with avarice at Bluetooth stuff for a while, but can't see any kit that comes even close to the $5 (USD) per module price they originally aimed at.
    Ericsson don't quote a price for their module (the one IBM used), but StoneStreetOne (http://stonestreetone.com/bluetooth/) sell something closer to a bit of kit you could actually use, and its a THOUSAND DOLLARS. Heck at least they give a price!
    According to at least one article (http://inf2.pira.co.uk/top040.htm#bt) the price of the Ericsson SDK+2 boards is £9000 (Uk Pounds). CSR apparently quote $8/unit for quantities >1m, but their SDK+2 is $8000 too (http://www.cambridgesiliconradio.com/develop.htm)

    With prices still this high can the forecasts of 50-100 million shipped products by mid 2001 be anything but pie in the sky? (http://www.the-arc-group.com/reports/future_mobil e_handsets/presentation/sld008.htm) . I reckon it'll be more like 5-10 million, consisting wholly or mainly of Ericsson phones.

    It looks like Bluetooth development will be out of the question for anyone but corporates for at least another year... :o(
  • USB and Firewire solve different
    problems. Much like serial
    and parrallel, they are not in competition.

    If you need high speed DV access, use firewire.
    If you need low speed(relatively) access to
    printers, mice, keyboards, scanners or removable media, use usb.

    I don't see any point where the two over lap. So
    in that case saying USB is "kicking the crap" out
    of firewire is like saying "serial is kicking the
    crap out of parrallel."

    And btw, as others have pointed out neither
    is free speech or free beer.
    ---
    RobK

  • Re:Open standard? (Score:2)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Neither USB nor FireWire are free. However, neither are expensive either. There are thousands of products which use USB just as there are thousands of products which use FireWire. The real point is that the topic under discussion is Bluetooth (running on Linux) wireless access. What would make sense is to compare Bluetooth to 802.11 also known as wireless Ethernet. Since 802.11 is currently in use and Bluetooth does not exist as a shipping product yet, any annoucements concerning Bluetooth can still be considered vaporous. The only interesting point about the article posted is that one line: "They reckon an 802.11 card [used up the batteries of] a Palm in 2.5 minutes, but Bluetooth gave only a slight dent in normal life." It seems that Bluetooth (when it ships) may have the advantage of not using as much juice (battery life) as wireless Ethernet. Still, wireless Ethernet (IEEE 802.11) is a proven product already shipping and in use (I'm posting this comment using an Apple Airport card & base staion to cable modem setup - runs like a champ). Bluetooth is not a free and open standard which is why it has taken so long for it to appear (it was suppose to be out a long time ago).
  • oh, but you're so missing the point. you haven't bought sufficiently into the hype yet. Look, microsoft and intel and all the big players are behind this, so fall in line mister. If people don't buy into the hyperbole, how are they ever going to foist these kinds of half-baked, marginal ideas on us? you're just too rational for your own good.
  • The coolest thing I have seen was the battery powered Serial converter, you can just connect it to a Routers console port, and voila no more fiddling with cables.. I love it..
  • ...but fine in ie!

    odd for a "linux company," no?
  • Well actually the 8 unit number is the limit for Networks of bluethooth units. Consider that even though you have a basestation that can reach 100M the clients, you PalmV, can't. So basestationPalmV communication is ok, but PalmVPalmV might not be that plausible(sp?) on that distance
  • I think you're missing the point. The $1000 and $8000 prices you're seeing are for hardware devkits... not the chipset. TI and Pantheon have both announced that they will be building Bluetooth IC's that they will sell in the $1 price range... much cheaper than the $5 expected. It seems that the current market rate for bluetooth chipsets is $25-30... not too different in cost from an 802.11 chipset (which has been around for ages).

  • While $3k does seem expensive, it really isn't for the convenience. Think of a setup such as this at an airport. 100 meters would cover a lot of people, and the cost of wiring would most likely be greater than the $3k. I think that the amount of simultaneous users would be a bigger limiting factor than converage area.

    Now for a office or home environment where people are mostly stationary, it is most likely more economical to stick with wired networks. But the $3k price is only the starting point, and the prices will only go down from here.

  • Oh, just piss off you stumpfucker! (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Everyone KNOWS Auschwitz was nothing more than an amusement park.

    Schindler's List was a MOVIE, remember!

    You'd fucking believe anything!

  • What I can't figure out is how Bluetooth is supposed to do its magic. There are some pretty restrictive limitations to the technology:

    • Only 8 devices in a piconet. Sure, a device can be in more than one net (I think 2 is the max, but I could be wrong) but there's no capability to bridge networks. If this really catches on I could easily blow past 8 devices just on my desk.
    • Addressing and security issues haven't been taken care of. Bluetooth is supposed to be magic in that two devices can talk just by coming into proximity of each other. Okay... So how do I tell my laptop to send the document to the printer on my desk, rather than the one on my cubemate's desk? How do I prevent him from using my printer? This is one of those issues that's supposed to "work itself out". Uh-uh. If it's not worked out by the time the first piece of hardware ships (oops, too late already!) we'll be left with a bunch of kludgy work-arounds.
  • I'd run their wires for them for $3k... and I'd do it in any direction heheh... ;) That seems quite pricey for only 100 meters of wireless.

    ----

  • So? I work for a company that runs 802.11b 6-8 MILES and uses a Redhat box as a router/repeater. Of course, it costs a total of $7000 for all the equipment, but it's all off-the-shelf components. It's no wizardy...

  • Open standard? (Score:3)

    by Snowfox ( 34467 ) <snowfox@NOsPaM.snowfox.net> on Monday October 30, 2000 @07:51AM (#664966) Homepage

    Is Bluetooth a free and open standard or is it closed or licensed?

    I'm wondering if we're looking at a free-like-USB or a for-pay-like-Firewire situation here. Considering Firewire's technical merits but tiny market share, the above consideration seems to be a pretty good indicator of its relevance.

  • I don't get it (Score:3)

    by Auckerman ( 223266 ) on Monday October 30, 2000 @07:51AM (#664967)
    There is a general rule of thumb when it comes to buying new toys. The more complex the toy is, technologically speak, the more components there are to fail. What happens when you have all your mp3's on a wireless harddrive for your house, with three computers all detecting and using it, dies? If it's just the case, that's going to be a lot more expensive to replace than an external harddrive. What happen's when someone doesn't set up their wireless home network "right" and their neighbor can see all their pr0n, or better yet, their Quicken data file.

    I'm not about to broadcast my business over the airwaves, even if it does have Linux "support".

  • Firewire's marketshare could never be considered "tiny". Last I checked, every digital camcorder that is made has IEEE 1394 (aka Firewire).

  • Linux sneaking in (Score:3)

    by cluge ( 114877 ) on Monday October 30, 2000 @07:53AM (#664969) Homepage
    With Linux having a Bluetooth server, linux again makes inroads into the lucrative server market. With "mobile" and "wireless" becoming the new big bad buzzwords it's nice to see a Linux solution. Competitors and specifically MS should be worried if this takes off. That would mean that even CE devices don't have to be tied to an NT/2000/ME backend. Hopefully this means that large groups of mobile users will be tied to a Linux back end.

  • Here's how to do this with 802.11 (Score:5)

    by Ross Finlayson ( 17913 ) on Monday October 30, 2000 @08:09AM (#664970) Homepage
    FYI, if you don't want to wait for Bluetooth (or if you want more range than Bluetooth gives you, and don't mind the extra power consumption), then it's quite straightforward to use a Linux (or FreeBSD, or other Unix) box as a 802.11 base station.


    For more details, see http://www.live.com/wireless /un ix-base-station.html [live.com]

  • Simple proactive measures can help tip the scales in your favor, that your information won't be picked up by the casual neighbor.

    For instance, do your wireless over a technology that uses 128bit encryption (like the mad science labs' upgrade to airport) and then ssh over that already encrypted connection.

    No line or connection is one hundred percent secure from attack, even if it's only vulnerable to social real-world hacking.

    A host is a host from coast to coast, but no one uses a host that's close

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