A billion mobile phones enabled with the new low energy version of Bluetooth by the end of the year is the target for chipset suppliers.
"The additional cost of adding Low Energy Bluetooth is negligible so by the end of the year there could be a billion handsets with it," said Ibrahim Al-Rashdan from chip firm CSR.
A number of low energy (LE) Bluetooth transceivers have been introduced since version 4.0 of the specification was published last summer.
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The potential this opens for small coin-cell battery powered Bluetooth wireless products and sensors has not been ignored by Bluetooth chip suppliers.
The low-energy part of v4.0 specifies two types of implementation: single and dual mode. Single mode can talk only to other single-mode.
But it is the dual-mode chips which add LE Bluetooth to classic Bluetooth devices which will be designed into mobile handsets..
"Low Energy Bluetooth will change the game," Said Al-Rashdan.
The same view is expressed by another Bluetooth chip supplier Broadcom.
"By 2012 Low Energy Bluetooth will become part of mobile phone ecosystems, it is that important to the Bluetooth market," said Richard Barrett from Broadcom.
See also: MWC 2011: Is this the lowest power Bluetooth receiver?
Richard Wilson, Barcelona