A new wireless standard called "Bluetooth" could make distribution center workers more handy—at least in the sense that their hands are free. Because Bluetooth-enabled bar-code terminals would eliminate the need for cable connections to printers or computers, warehouse workers could wear ring-style bar-code scanners on their fingers or watch-size scanners on their wrists, leaving their hands free to pick up and move boxes.

The workers' feelings about being "freed up" to move boxes aside, the value of the Bluetooth telecommunications technology, which basically replaces multiple cable connections with shortwave radio links, could be a boon to distribution operations as well as to truck terminals. Eliminating cables not only simplifies computer hookups but also means that workers no longer have to carry printers on their belts for generating bar-code labels and forklift operators don't have to tether their data collectors to a printer, says Jim Geier, president of Wireless-Nets Consulting Services of Dayton, Ohio. There are cost implications to this as well, he adds. "Now you can have one printer and have multiple people share that one bar-code printer."

Although Bluetooth could usher in an era of lower-cost wireless communications, this short-range radio-frequency standard has some drawbacks for industrial operations. For one, it has a lower data-transmission rate than the more common industrial protocol now used for radio-frequency communications in distribution centers. There's also the potential for radio signal interference when Bluetooth is used in combination with that older industrial wireless protocol.

In 1998, a number of computer and mobile communications manufacturers, including Ericsson, IBM, Intel, Nokia, and Toshiba, banded together to develop a low-cost wireless communications standard. Because the standard was intended to unite a hodgepodge of users around a common radio link, the developers named it for a 10th century Danish king—Harald Bluetooth—who united the fractious kingdoms of Denmark and Norway under one rule.

Designed with consumers in mind, Bluetooth was originally meant to allow computers and audio-video devices to "talk" without the need for a cable. "It was created to meet the ... need for the growing number of portable 'communicating computing appliances' to be able to create ad hoc networks to service user needs," says Jeffrey R. Harrow, editor of the weekly technology journal Rapidly Changing Face of Computing. "For example, [with Bluetooth, you'd be] able to print from your PDA (personal digital assistant) or notebook computer to whatever printer happens to be nearby; to use a single headset to talk through the pocket phone in your briefcase and to listen to your MP3 player; to transfer a file to a PC or another PDA across the table; and to run a slide show from your notebook to the projector in the conference rooms, without any wires."

Many analysts expect the market for Bluetooth-enabled devices to take off this year. The research firm Allied Business Intelligence, for instance, forecasts that the number of industrial and consumer Bluetooth devices will reach 1.4 billion by the year 2005. "Bluetooth was designed for laptops and PDAs, but it can be adapted to being the wireless remote control for a VCR," says Navin Sabharwal, a director of residential and networking technologies at the firm, which is headquartered in Oyster Bay, N.Y. "Bluetooth was meant for the mobile handset market, but it's desired by the auto industries, the health care industries. Retail wants it. Hotels want it."

One of Bluetooth's big selling points is its low cost. A local-area network (LAN) using the common industrial wireless protocol—IEEE 802.11—would cost a company $200 for each wireless network interface card placed in a terminal and about $1,000 for each access point, which usually consists of a radio antenna and a wired network interface. "This cost can range from a few thousand dollars for a small wireless LAN (one or two access points) to tens of thousands of dollars for a larger wireless LAN (20 to 30 access points)," says Geier. A Bluetooth radio device used in a terminal, by contrast, would cost a company less than $100 and each access point about $300, he reports. "I imagine these prices will decrease significantly over the next year," he adds.

Spurred by the interest among businesses, a number of leading manufacturers of bar-code terminals are developing Bluetooth products for use in logistics operations. For instance, Symbol Technologies Inc. of Holtsville, N.Y., is working with a customer to test a Bluetooth-enabled cordless scanner for package tracking, reports Stephen Shellhammer, a senior director at Symbol.

In the past, warehouse workers using Symbol's ring scanner have had the device tethered by a cable to a small computer placed on the wrist. The advent of Bluetooth would change all that; the dock workers would instead wear a ring-style bar-code scanner on their hands. As they put the package on a truck, they would scan the bar code, and the package data would then be transmitted to a nearby base station using the Bluetooth radio link. "Imagine getting rid of the cable and the wrist computer," says Shellhammer.

Symbol isn't the only bar-code equipment maker adapting its products for Bluetooth. LXE Inc. of Norcross, Ga., also has begun working on incorporating that standard into its line of wireless computers. "We are setting up our LXE mobile data terminals and rugged computers to incorporate Bluetooth technology," says Kai Figwer, LXE's manager-mobile computing products, "and we are working with our major business partners to ensure that our systems are designed to support Bluetooth technology adoption in their scanners and printers."

Similarly, Handheld Products of Skaneateles Falls, N.Y., is developing handheld scanners and portable data terminals using the Bluetooth protocol, according to Rob Hussey, a product manager at Handheld Products. And Intermec Technologies Corp. of Everett, Wash., actually has plans to introduce a pocket computer with a scan engine that uses the Bluetooth wireless protocol—the Model 700—this fall. Rich Sherman, a director of product marketing at Intermec, says that the Model 700, which runs on the WinCE platform, will be able to transmit data using Bluetooth to bar-code label printers. It will also have the Internet Explorer application built into it for a wireless Web connection. In addition to the handheld computer, Intermec plans to introduce a Bluetooth-enabled thermal bar-code printer later this year.

Other printer manufacturers are developing products that could receive data via Bluetooth as well. Epson America Inc. of Long Beach, Calif., which makes printers primarily for the home and office markets, has plans to ship Bluetooth-enabled products this year and to eventually release a full line of printers incorporating the Bluetooth wireless protocol.

Industrial printer makers also want to adapt their equipment to take advantage of Bluetooth technology. At last year's Frontline Solutions Expo, a trade show for the automatic data-collection industry, Sato America Inc. of Sunnyvale, Calif., displayed a prototype of a thermal-transfer printer that generated labels after receiving data transmissions via Bluetooth. Sato hopes to bring such a product to market in the next six to eight months, says Bob Karr, Sato's marketing manager.

Zebra Technologies Corp. of Vernon Hills, Ill., is also studying whether to use Bluetooth technology. "We're obviously looking at Bluetooth," says Jeff Kaufman, Zebra's director of product management. "There are some issues with Bluetooth. But any cable replacement technology is appealing."

Kaufman isn't the first person to raise the "issues" with Bluetooth. Although the technology has considerable potential, most experts believe some bugs still need to be worked out before it becomes the wireless communication standard in warehouses and other industrial environments. For starters, Bluetooth was designed for so-called "personal area networks (PANs)," which don't require a long signal range and high data speeds. Thus, a Bluetooth device normally sends and receives data from another device within 30 feet (although its range can be boosted to 325 feet) and transmits data at about one megabit per second. By contrast, many warehouses that use local-area networks use the IEEE 802.11b wireless standards for radio-frequency bar-code terminals and mobile computers, which call for a data-transmission rate of 11 megabits per second.

Another problem is that both Bluetooth and the 802.11b occupy the same unlicensed radio frequency, the 2.4 GHz band. Both technologies also use frequency-hopping modulation for transmitting data. The overlapping radio frequencies raise the issue as to whether the two wireless standards can coexist in the same facility.

Interference could be a problem if a Bluetooth device and an 802.11 device were to transmit data at the same time near each other. Some experts think that if the two were used in the same facility such as a warehouse, Bluetooth would impair signal transmissions of devices using 802.11b. "Bluetooth is an aggressive hopper," says Sabharwal. "If somebody is in on the range, [Bluetooth] has a good chance of knocking it off the air or else degrading the signal. A company has to say Bluetooth or 802.11."

Geier, on the other hand, thinks that interference can be reduced if a company takes steps to provide enough access points (radio transmitters) to provide solid signal strength throughout the facility. He also recommends that companies consider using frequency hopping instead of direct sequence IEEE 802.11 wireless LAN radio cards and access points. Another possible solution would be to arrange work activities so Bluetooth devices don't transmit within 50 feet of 802.11 radios and access points.

In an effort to head off the problem of interference, the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE) has formed a task group to develop recommendations on the coexistence of those two wireless standards. "We're modeling the interference to determine it quantitatively," says Symbol's Shellhammer, who's the chairman of that task group. "We're trying to add some science and get quantitative models to predict when interference will occur. We're also developing coexistence mechanisms for those two techniques to work together."

If the coexistence issues can be resolved, even companies with existing LANS in their warehouses will likely switch to Bluetooth devices if only to eliminate cables from their operation and to make their workers more mobile and presumably, more productive. Because of its lower

installation cost, the Bluetooth standard may even become the dominant one for wireless communication in small and medium-sized distribution operations. Many of the lower-cost Palm OS and WinCE pocket computers used for scanning in small warehouses are expected to take advantage of Bluetooth to provide cable-free data transmission. "You're going to see a fair amount of Bluetooth deployment in the coming years," predicts Rick Bushnell, president of the consulting and educational firm Quad II of Chalfont, Pa.