First industrial Bluetooth product arrives

The first industrial product to use the Bluetooth wireless communications technology has been announced by the Swedish industrial Bluetooth specialist, connectBlue. The company has developed a serial port adapter that allows any product with an RS-232 port to communicate wirelessly with other Bluetooth devices, such as mobile phones and handheld computers.

As well a version that plugs into existing RS-232 ports, connectBlue has designed an OEM version that can be built into products.

The company says that by eliminating wiring, the adapter will cut installation costs, simplify maintenance, and increase flexibility, especially for moving machines. It supports communications between devices such as control systems, computers, robots and measuring devices, and will allow advanced equipment to be configured by, and to communicate with, WAP phones.

"The potential for the product is huge," says Rolf Nilsson, connectBlue`s president. "Today there are hundreds of millions of devices installed in industrial applications where this product might be of use."

Bluetooth was developed originally by Ericsson as a low-cost means of communicating wirelessly between mobile phones and other electronic devices. It is now an open system supported by hundreds of manufacturers. The first consumer and business products are starting to reach the market.

Microsoft, one of the early supporters of Bluetooth, has announced that it will not implement the system in the next version of its operating system, Windows XP. It blames the lack of Bluetooth hardware and the unreliability of the technology, but observers expects that Microsoft will support the system in later versions of Windows.