Over the last year, three shifts in the UWB market emerged, which indicates a market transition from demonstrations and prototypes to actual shipping products.
(1) An evolution of the Bluetooth SIG into an umbrella organization for multiple connectivity radios, including UWB, all running under the Bluetooth stack,
(2) Pulse~Link achieving customer validation of its CW-UWB products, and
(3) a strong move by CSR towards integrating UWB into its offering.
As the wireless connectivity protocols mature and gain market acceptance, the differentiation between Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, and UWB begin to blur. Many of the same players involved in promoting and developing UWB-based wireless connectivity options are deeply embedded in the furtherance of the IEEE 802.11 family of specifications that drive Wi-Fi as a competitive alternative in the wireless connectivity arena. While each protocol and technology under development today will eventually find its own unique application and niche within the market, the component OEMs are maintaining their stake in the various initiatives as a means to ensure a place in the wireless connectivity market.
Now it is simply a matter of letting the market and equipment manufacturers define the application for the various wireless connectivity options.
The question looming over the emergence of UWB products today is related to the mechanism by which significant adoption will be stimulated. The key to this is strong application developer activity. Thus we expect that the application of UWB as an underlying protocol for high speed Bluetooth, with its tremendous number of Bluetooth application developers, will quickly dominate new product introductions for UWB technology once the high speed Bluetooth standard is completed.
