Bluetooth 4.0 wireless design begins to show in devices like headsets, smartphones and PCs by fourth quarter, said by Bluetooth Special Interest Group.

New design able to use in lower-power devices than earlier versions of technology, containing watches, pedometers, smart meters and other gadgets that execute on coin-cell batteries, said Michael Foley, executive director of Bluetooth SIG standards setting organization. Earlier versions of Bluetooth go into devices with big capacity batteries. Bluetooth 4.0 contains low-energy specification for sending little bursts of data over short ranges, also to high-speed data move abilities introduced with Bluetooth 3.0 last April.

New design carry high-speed Wi-Fi characteristic in Bluetooth 3.0. That permits devices to jump onto Wi-Fi 802.11 networks, to move data at up to 25Mbits per second.

Bluetooth fights with wireless technologies like WiBro, UWB and Wi-Fi. But Bluetooth 4.0 is suited for short-range communications, as rival technologies use much energy to send data over same distances. "They'd be like pulling out cannon to kill mouse," Golvin said.

Zigbee wireless design is option to Bluetooth 4.0, but Bluetooth has benefit of broadly organized across devices. That gives it head start over rival technologies. Bluetooth is an open standard, as rival low-level technologies lean to be proprietary, Golvin said.