With the explosion of mobile devices, it should be no surprise to hear that Bluetooth 4.0 has been under active development, and now the specification is official. So what can we look forward to?

The multi-talented Bluetooth helps connect us to our phones, our cars and numerous other devices. With the recently announced Bluetooth Core Specification 4.0, the Bluetooth SIG have focused on low energy use as a big part of the package, according to DailyTech.

“With today’s announcement, the race is on for product designers to be the first to market,” said Michael Foley, Ph.D., executive director of the Bluetooth SIG. “Bluetooth low energy modules for all sorts of new products may now be qualified -- this is an important step towards our goal of enabling new markets with Bluetooth wireless technology.”

The Bluetooth SIG is looking to expand their reach beyond the most traditional uses, such as connecting cell phones to hands-free headsets. They see the low-energy Bluetooth 4.0 spec as being ideal for markets such as health care, sports and fitness, security and home entertainment. With such new low-energy specs, Bluetooth-enabled devices can feasibly last for years with power from common coin-cell batteries.

In addition to ultra-low peak, average and idle mode power consumption, Bluetooth 4.0 data transfers with the new low power specification will be at 1 Mbps with very short data packets of 8-octet minimum and 27-ocet maximum. The specification uses adaptive frequency hopping common to all versions of Bluetooth, operating in the 2.4 GHz ISM band. Security will also play a big role in Bluetooth 4.0, with full AES-128 encryption using CCM to encrypt and authenticate data packets.

At the forefront of Bluetooth 4.0 adoption is cell phone giant Nokia, who is already hard at work integrating the new specification into products for future release. “Nokia has been committed to this ultra low-power wireless technology since its Wibree technology development,” Nokia's director of Devices R&D Markku Verkama said. “Now we are happy to see the adoption of the Bluetooth low energy specification, which will open up new market opportunities and space to innovate for the industry.”