Nokia are getting into the keyboard game, clearly hoping their new range of mobile phones are going to replace PDAs (via blueserker)
The Nokia Wireless Keyboard SU-8W uses Bluetooth and will work with the Nokia 7610, Nokia 6260 and Nokia 6630 mobile phones. In the future, Nokia says, more phones may be added to this list. The keyboard is expected to be available in the last quarter of 2004.
Nothing surprising here, except the Bluetooth element. Why won’t the keyboard work with other Bluetooth phones? Some writers have pointed out the keyboard uses the Bluetooth Human Interface Device, or HID, profile, meaning, according to mobileburn.com, ”that it should work with many other Bluetooth devices that also support that profile, such as PCs and PDAs”.
And why, according to Nokia, won’t it work at the same time as a Bluetooth headset? Nokia says, “You can only use one enhancement using Bluetooth wireless technology at a time.” Huh? I thought the whole point of Bluetooth was that it would hook up all sorts of gadgets without limit. In my uninformed world, headsets used specific Bluetooth profiles — Handsfree and Headset — while keyboards and whatnot used the HID profile.
Conclusion: Either manufacturers are not implementing Bluetooth properly — intentionally, perhaps, to limit users to their brand and new models — or Bluetooth is not as good as it’s supposed to be. Either way, I hear more warning bells sounding for the future of the wireless standard.
My experience is that Nokia is slooooowww in implementing standards in general, bluetooth in special. Nokia bluetooth mobiles can’t do many things other bluetooth mobiles can do.
I experienced the same with a 6600 from Nokia – its nice to synchronize yr 500 contacts w Outlook using Bluetooth. Nice to use the BT Headset too. But forget about doing both at the same time: “Max number of connections exceeded”. Needless to say that there actually was only ONE connection open.
It seems to be fine to buy an expensive NOKIA phone coz it has plenty of features. But don’t dare to use them: Try the 6600 as an organizer with 500 contacts and see it cease – getting slow, system crashes … I wonder why I bought the 6600 after waisting my money on a NOKIA Communicator two years earlier with similar success. If you ever consider buying a more advanced phone (and eventually really want to use it for more than a decent show off) make sure to try it first, borrow it for two days, install yr contacts, Bluetooth gadgets and look for the performance. I don’t know if others are better, but one thing is for sure: NOKIA isn’t leading edge, for me it just proved to be expensive crap.
I would speculate that the reason the phone can’t use the headset and the keyboard at the same time is the micro in the phone is too slow to multitask the job. Theoretically there is a limit built into the software : 255 devices can be connected at one time. Whether or not the connection would be able to handle that is another story. And that is also assuming a scatter net isn’t in play… which at the moment is unlikely since the part of the protocol hasn’t be finished yet.
If you can’t use the keyboard with other USB devices I would say that it is due to Nokia making sure thats the way it is, but with the release of XP SP2 I’m sure it won’t be long before there is a blue-hack for it. (I wanna hurt myself for writing that last bit)
Well, I have purchased Nokia SU-8W Bluetooth keyboard today, having Nokia HS-11W Bluetooth headset already, and despite Nokia saying I can use only one accessory to my Nokia 6630 at a time, they BOTH work at the same time. I can make a phone call using HS-11W, while typing memos on Nokia SU-8W.
This is an amazing tehcnology 🙂