Skype FREETALK Wireless Stereo Headset is for today’s Skype users… not tomorrow’s… not yesterday’s.

SkypeJournal’s recent series on Skype’s forward moving strategies included a discussion on the relevance of hardware. Well this Christmas, a piece of hardware near and dear to my heart will be ready to ship. I’ve written about the FREETALK in another post, so no need to repeat.

The nicest thing about this device… it is a very simple and elegant hardware solution that imporves the way *current* Skype users experience voice chat.

FREETALK is for the hear and now.  It does not distract you from the now.  It does not promise a future that is not ready.  It does not try to pretend you are in the past.

1. Other types of Skype hardware struggle with gear that is trying to bring skype to Skype-non-users. Make it look like a normal desk telephone, and give the simple number dialing usage model a home on the skype network. Harder sell. Gotta sell on lower cost. Gotta teach people new features. People who would get this are likely more attached to their PCs.

2. Or bring Skype to platforms where potential users are using a different telephony service. Run Skype on my mobile phone, now you’ve got to be better than the experience of making call on my mobile.

Brian Dipert at EDN is trying co-existence with AvneraAudio

At Brian’s Brain, Dipert was one of the first bloggers to write about the Rocketfish RF-WHTIB. He had some issues with an early production example, but has since come back to it after realizing the grass ain’t so green on the 5.8 GHz side of the fence. So far so good.

The experience he had with the 5.8 solution will become more and more common. People get frustrated with sub-standard 2.4 GHz getting interfered with by other 2.4 GHz systems. So they figure, “I’ll just change RF frequencies and all my problems will be solved.” Well let me offer a few points to consider before you, too, make this leap of faith:

1. The 2.4 GHz spectrum is popular because it is a technological sweet-spot. 2.4 GHz has the least amount of regulatory conflicts world-wide, and thus it sees incorporation in products/technology platforms that are destined for global/higher volumes, and thus can lead to better economies of scale – making 2.4 GHz a more economic option for end-users on the average.  5.8 GHz is the newest ISM band, and across regions there are inconsistencies that drive lots of FUD thru the industry.  OEMs don’t like this, and thus adoption is and solutions are less common, and suffer from negative economies of scale.  Also 2.4 GHz is typically lower power at the circuit level, and so you can get smaller form factors and longer battery lives… also generally good things in 2.4’s favor.
2. The notion of RF co-existence is a concept worth introducing and discussing. Basically when you consider a system, like WLAN, or more specifically 802.11g, you need to think about two things. One, how it causes performance degradation to other co-located systems, and how it’s own performance is degraded by other co-located systems. Like any healthy relationship, one must understand that each must be considerate… i.e. attention must be paid both ways. The initial impression that Brian had, and many others harbor, against 2.4 GHz is that anything in 2.4 GHz will degrade his precious 802.11g network. Think FHSS 2.4 GHz cordless telephones. Think Microwave ovens. Think like Mr Hasty, a quick to act wireless audio system designer… what’s important to Mr. Hasty? That his audio sound good in the presence of other 2.4 Ghz radios. If you stop there, and design, you end up with wireless audio systems that stomp(!) on WLAN and others, like Bluetooth, and FHSS telephones, and many others. This happens because Mr. Hasty likes to throw power to the transmitter and send lots of extra overhead into the spectrum to ensure his audio gets there. And sometimes it does. But like Sherman marching thru Georgia, the ends maybe don’t justify the means. Bottom-line… not all 2.4 GHz system focus on co-existance. They place a priority on survival. AvneraAudio knows the economics of 2.4 GHz, and thus wanted to build a wireless audio system that was not only designed to survive, but also to be a good neighbor. If you let Avnera’s system into your world, it will avoid WLAN, and BT will avoid us. Microwaves are easy to spot, and so we move away from that too. And Cordless phones are loud but forgiving, like a shouting person in a crowded place… So we just filter it out, and focus on our more polite conversation until the egotist pipes down and goes away. Even more Bottom-line: Smart design is needed for co-existence. So Mr Hasty should have paused and asked, how do we survive, but not at the expense of others…. would-have-been-result: consumers’ rejoice.
3. Just cause you buy something with a 5.8 GHz radio doesn’t mean you avoid co-existence issues. It only means you avoid interference from 2.4 GHz systems!!! Well, I got news for ya, it ain’t like 5.8 GHz is all cookies and cream. You got messy cordless telephones, you got 802.11a, you got a lot a stuff… Again, if you go 5.8 GHz, why go there with a communications system technology that was unproven in the 2.4 GHz domain. You are only transferring your conflicts to a different arena. Traditional wireless audio vendors think a solution to poor 2.4 GHz performance is to offer a 5.8 GHz option. Bizz!

The solution is better communication system design, through co-existence. Never have the words of Rodney King (pictured above) been such an inspiration “People, I just want to say, you know, can we all get along?”

Wait a minute: did I just mock a hero Union Army general (which Pavement cemented into my psyche with “Unseen Power of the Picket Fence”, 15 years ago), and take inspiration from a convicted wife-beater? Forget Brian’s brain… what about mine? To think I was talking about good wireless audio system design. Oh, how the lure of the mass market corrupts… militarists and penologists, avert your eyes.