Will WiFi Direct kill Bluetooth?

Labels: wifi

Posted by Zein at 10:29 PM

Last week, the Wi-Fi Alliance announced Wi-Fi Direct — a peer-to-peer wireless networking method that could replace what we commonly know today as Ad Hoc networking mode.

With Ad Hoc, we can usually share internet connection of one computer to other computers thru the built-in WiFi. One such example is our tutorial here — How to share 3G Internet over WiFi.

The new protocol (Wi-Fi Direct) will allow any device that implements the standard to connect directly to another device to send and receive data. It feels like the standard it gunning at Bluetooth. Imagine being able to share the internet connection of your mobile phone to all other devices via WiFi? You can also transfer files at the same time.
If Bluetooth has a normal transfer rate of about 2Mbps, WiFi Direct could reach 54Mbps or even higher. On top of that, wireless connections can go even further, in the hundreds of meters perhaps. Only drawback could be the amount of power it consumes compared to running Bluetooth.