Bluetooth 3D Glasses to Hit Stores by Year-End, Broadcom Says

Bluetooth-based 3D TVs and glasses will hit the market by year-end, relieving some of the viewing angle and interference problems that have marred first-generation 3D TV viewing, a Broadcom executive told us. Jim Muth, marketing director in Broadcom’s embedded Bluetooth products group, said two or three manufacturers will ship Bluetooth-enabled 3D TVs this year, but he wouldn’t elaborate.

Vizio’s first 3D TVs will ship in the fourth quarter (CED June 23 p2), and although the 42-, 47- and 55-inch TVs will each come with a Bluetooth QWERTY keyboard, a spokesman told us, it isn’t known whether the glasses technology will use infrared or Bluetooth transmission, or whether the TVs will ship with glasses at all. The Bluetooth 3D TVs will use active-shutter 3D technology, the spokesman said, saying the company’s 65-inch 3D TV with passive technology is still on course for early 2011.

Sharp, Mitsubishi, and LG have built Bluetooth capability into current 2D TVs for transmission of audio and remote-control signals, Muth said. A Sharp spokesman wouldn’t say whether the company’s future 3D TVs will work with Bluetooth-based glasses. Sharp’s first-gen 3D TVs come with a switch that allows users to go between 2D and 3D while wearing glasses.

Since Bluetooth uses RF transmission, it’s not plagued by the line-of-sight issues that can affect 3D signals traveling from TV to glasses, Muth said. When a viewer’s head turns, it can take a few seconds for the glasses to find the signal again, disrupting the 3D experience. Someone walking in front of the TV can also interrupt the signal transmission. Viewers far off axis can lose the 3D effect because of limited viewing angles that vary by manufacturer, he said. Bluetooth also has a built-in system clock that keeps the TV and glasses in sync at precise intervals so the glasses can go into sleep mode at certain times and don’t have to remain on constantly, as they do with IR, Muth said. That results in Bluetooth battery consumption 40-50 percent less than with IR, he said. And because infrared 3D glasses require two-way communication, infrared signals coming from the TV could interfere with a Blu-ray player, MP3 player and other products that use IR, Muth said.

Companies including Panasonic, Samsung, Sony, LG and Sharp that sell 3D TVs using infrared glasses would need hybrid glasses to accommodate both transmission methods. “The TV guys don’t want to come out with a new pair of glasses that doesn’t work with their old 3D TVs,” Muth said, so Broadcom has come up with a universal Bluetooth-plus-IR solution. “They can build one set of glasses that works with new TVs that support Bluetooth and old TVs that support IR,” he said. “If you're a TV maker and don’t have IR glasses out there already, you don’t care.”

Broadcom has dual solutions to carry Bluetooth 3D to TVs built for IR. One is “Bluetooth plus IR,” in which “universal glasses” incorporate an infrared sensor into the Bluetooth chip that drives the glasses, Muth said. “If there’s an IR input, we use that, and if not, they'd use the Bluetooth in the universal glasses,” he said. Either way, a Bluetooth chip would have to be added on the TV side via a module that connects through a USB or IR port, Muth said. “There is some software involved,” he said, “and that’s progressing.” He declined to identify the glasses suppliers “since none are public yet."

Cost is one of the challenges to Bluetooth glasses, Muth said. “The Bluetooth chips are much less than $2 themselves, but you have to add in the module and there are various schemes for doing that,” he said. He noted that Broadcom also makes digital TV chips, “so in the future you'll see DTV chips with Bluetooth as one of the components of the system chip,” he said, which will reduce cost. Two or three manufacturers are coming to market with Bluetooth headsets in Q1 “and more throughout the year,” Muth said, and “once it happens, then the guys who announce in Q1 will help drive the rest of the industry."

For Broadcom, adding 3D is part of an overall goal of creating a Bluetooth universe in home entertainment, Muth said. As connected TVs come to market, the need for wireless keyboards increases, and Bluetooth is a natural way to get data from couch to TV without using a wire. Once Bluetooth is in the TV then, “it opens a wide range of applications for the TV, set-top box and Blu-ray player,” he said. Audio streaming via Bluetooth can allow a person to listen to music or TV without disturbing anyone else in the room and can enable people to stream music from an iPod or a cell phone to a TV or music system. Bluetooth cellphones can become remote controls or do VoIP through a connected TV, Muth noted. “There are quite a few applications you can use if you have Bluetooth in the TV that you can then extend to other products without additional cost on the TV side.” he said. He noted that peripherals have associated costs, but “you might already have the peripherals."

Still, Bluetooth carries a higher manufacturing cost than infrared, he said, declining to quantify the difference. “You're paying a little extra for that performance,” he said. “It is more expensive than IR today, but there are tangible benefits to going down the Bluetooth path.”