Could the personal healthcare and fitness market be an important target for BlackBerry's 4G smart phone, the BlackBerry 10?
The inclusion of Bluetooth Smart and NFC follows the trend we have seen from other smartphone suppliers such as Samsung and HTC.
According to market analyst IHS, the fact that Bluetooth Smart is in the BlackBerry 10 platform will open it up to developers interested in the growing market of wireless health and wellness monitors, sports and fitness monitoring equipment.
"Several sports and fitness vendors such as Nike, Polar, Garmin and Wahoo Fitness have already either released or announced products that utilise Bluetooth Smart,” said Phillip Maddocks, market analyst at IHS.BlackBerry has followed a trend set by other smartphone manufacturers on the hardware side by incorporating near field communications (NFC) as well as Bluetooth in its 4G handset.
Other platforms such as Android have also been offering the same functionality, utilising Google Wallet on NFC enabled phones.
According to IHS, more than 75 million NFC enabled cellular handsets were shipped in 2012, and this will continue to grow.“The incorporation of NFC in smartphones has been increasing, with functionality such as mobile payment being the main use case for the technology in the BlackBerry 9900 which also featured the technology,” said Maddocks.
The technology can also be used for simply the pairing process with other devices that utilise both NFC and a technology such as Bluetooth Smart.
According to an IHS study “Wireless Opportunities in Health and Wellness Monitoring – 2012 Edition”, more than 69 million Bluetooth low energy health and sports monitors will ship between 2012 and 2017.
BlackBerry’s announcement today brings their handsets in line with where the industry is heading, despite being delayed, and later to the market than expected, said IHS.
