Bluetooth low energy chips are set to boom

AS THE BLUETOOTH Low Energy (BLE) specification waits to be ratified by the Bluetooth SIG, a study has speculated that the technology could sell 2.5 billion units annually within five years.

Beancounters at ABI Research said that if people are quick enough to realise how cool the technology is they can make a fortune out of it. Of course this sounds a bit like carnival barking to pull in punters to us.

After shuffling its tarot deck, the analysts said that more than 2.5 billion BLE chipsets will ship in 2014 in a market that will grow 78 per cent between 2009 and 2014. Either that or someone will meet a tall dark stranger who will hand them a badger, the cards could be read either way.

Principal soothsayer Jonathan Collins said that BLE will enter the market in two stages. First we will see support for BLE embedded in mobile handsets and then BLE devices will come to market.

BLE enabled sensors and monitors are used to communicate with mobile handsets and other BLE-enabled devices using very low power communications.

Low power short range applications such as sports and fitness equipment will be the first devices to market, but there also is a lot of interest in BLE health monitoring applications, apparently. µ