A repeat of the success story of Bluetooth, with a recognisable brand name and interoperability, is the aim for the Wibree ultra low power, short range, wireless technology by 2008.

“Our target is to make this [Wibree] a de facto standard in one way or another,” said Harri Tulimaa, head of technology outlicensing at Nokia, which originally announced Wibree in October. “The fact is there is no technology addressing the needs we wanted to approach - ultra low power for mobile devices.”

Wibree is being aimed at allowing mobile phones to communicate with devices operating from a button cell battery. “The main point for small devices is it has to be significantly lower power than existing technology,” said Tulimaa.

According to Nordic Semiconductor, which is involved in defining the Wibree specification, the technology to do this is already in existence but until now it has been proprietary technology.

“Wibree is not a dream technology, there are others [proprietary] out there that can do what Wibree will do already,” said Thomas Bonnerud, product manager of standard components, Nordic. “The one thing missing here is interoperability.”

Wibree will be more expensive than proprietary systems but it is anticipated that interoperability and a brand name will counteract this. “If you strip out everything to just what is needed it’s probably better, but will a brand name and interoperability make up for a small price increase? - we’ll see,” said Bonnerud.

Wibree will be available in two versions - standalone and dual mode. In dual mode it will be added to a Bluetooth chip where it can use the same radio and antenna. Nokia expects it to add €1 to a standalone product and 10cents when added to a Bluetooth chip.