Bluetooth Smart Ready product announcements piling up

The massive Bluetooth ecosystem continues to grow by leaps and bounds, with news of new Bluetooth products coming so fast this time of year that we sometimes have a hard time keeping up with them all. In just the past few weeks, a flood of innovative Bluetooth wireless speakers have been announced by JBL, Jabra,Logitech and other big names in the audio market.

Last week Amazon created waves with its new line of Kindle Fire tablets that include Bluetooth technology for the first time. Earlier in the week, Nokia announced its first Windows Phone 8 handsets, highlighting hi-fidelity Bluetooth audio on their latest Lumia smartphones.

Now comes news from Apple, which announced today that the iPhone 5 and next-generation iPod touch are both Bluetooth Smart Ready hubs. The iPod touch is the first Bluetooth Smart Ready music player on the planet. Not only can it wirelessly stream crystal-clear Bluetooth audio, but it can also connect to innovative new Bluetooth Smart peripherals hitting the streets daily.

Whether it’s the entire line of new Nike+ shoes, the Wahoo Blue HR or Polar H7 heart rate monitors, or other new Bluetooth Smart devices like the Casio Smart Watch, the connected convenience that Bluetooth provides consumers is simply awesome.

Of course, Apple has been leading the charge for Bluetooth Smart Ready hub devices ever since they launched the iPhone 4S, MacBook Air and Mac mini last year. That was followed by the new iPad and the entire roster of MacBook Pros earlier this year.

But there’s more. I can’t wait to see all the new Windows 8 Smart Ready tablets and PCs hit the streets over the next few months. Like Apple’s OSX and iOS, the native Bluetooth Smart Ready support Microsoft is providing through their Windows 8 OS is huge for the Bluetooth ecosystem.

The abundance of Bluetooth Smart Ready hubs is great for OEMs building Bluetooth and Bluetooth Smart peripherals and for app developers, who can create apps to access the data coming off of these Bluetooth peripherals and turn it into useful information for consumers.

Ultimately, the real winners are the hundreds of millions of Bluetooth customers around the world who simply enjoy the connected convenience Bluetooth brings to their lives. Life sure is better with Bluetooth.