The Bluetooth Special Interest Group announced the adoption of Bluetooth Core Specification Version 2.0 + Enhanced Data Rate, which brings up transfer speed, lowers power consumption and increases durability of the technology with multiple connections.

The main features of Bluetooth Core Specification Version 2.0 + EDR are 3 times faster transmission speed (up to 10 times in certain cases) (current Bluetooth specification offers 1Mb/s transfer speed), lower power consumption through reduced duty cycle, simplification of multi-link scenarios due to more available bandwidth, backwards compatible to earlier versions, further improved BER (Bit Error Rate) performance.

“The motivation behind 2.0 + EDR was to improve existing usage scenarios which require increased data throughput, like streaming CD-quality audio, digital image transfer and laser printing. Now manufacturers can update to the latest Bluetooth specification to fit the demands of consumers for their particular product – and the user will get a better Bluetooth experience,” said Dr. Michael Foley, executive director of the Bluetooth SIG.

The Bluetooth SIG expects products based upon the specification to be available in 2005. Products from the PC industry are expected to be the first on the market with the new specification, followed by devices for audio and imaging use cases.