IR or Bluetooth
IR has for long time been used as a signal radiation
technology between the remote controllers and the TV sets/settop
boxes. On the other hand, Bluetooth is usually used on
laptops, PDAs and mobile phones. As a mobile portable device,
remote controller should provide convenient usage for the
users. However, IR based remote controller must be used
within short range and line-of-sight distance, which is not a
problem for most families with limited living spaces. Using
Bluetooth instead of IR on remote controllers will increase the
controlling distance up to 10 meters thus is suitable for larger
rooms with big TV screens. Moreover, the Bluetooth can
provide more bandwidth than the IR technology thus providing
an opportunity for more data exchange between the remote
controllers and the set-top boxes. It seems that Bluetooth does
provide a good way for the information interaction between the
set-top boxes and the remote controllers especially when the
digital TV system is also evolving towards an Internet capable
multimedia device in the future. However, the new remote
controller discovery and set-up time for Bluetooth can take
much longer with about 5-30 seconds [4]. Therefore, whether
using IR or Bluetooth based transmission technology will
much more depend on how often the users change their remote
controllers.