Trend to wireless peripherals due to continue

27 February 2008

Wired peripherals such as the traditional keyboard and mouse are fast becoming passé in the IT world.

Calvin van Wyk, Logitech product manager at Tarsus Technologies, says that the clutter and additional desk space that using wired peripherals entails, has driven technology-savvy buyers to look at wireless alternatives.

"This growing interest in wireless peripherals has caused their price to drop and their sophistication to increase, only driving this trend harder," he adds.

As an example of this trend in practice, van Wyk cites the growing demand in the enterprise market for keyboards and mice that support secure wireless communication protocols.

"For security and interoperability reasons, wireless keyboards and mice used in the enterprise space need to use encrypted signals," he says.

"Logitech's range of 2.4GHz wireless peripherals are therefore paired at a factory level," he explains, "and its Bluetooth peripherals are paired by the user at the time of installation.

"Both the conventional radio-frequency and Bluetooth products, however, sport secure connectivity, so cross talk and interference is eliminated," he adds.

Van Wyk says that similar trends are evident in the consumer space, where media-centric keys have been added to keyboards and mice have been adapted for use in the media centre environment.

"The one constant is wireless," he says, "regardless of whether it's in the consumer or enterprise space. Moreover, the trend towards wireless is showing no evidence of slowing down.

"The popularity gained by wireless keyboards and mice since they became available and accessible to the average user leads us to believe that the trend towards untethered devices has only just begun - in years to come, it will be totally plausible for webcams, microphones, speakers and other common peripherals to go wireless," he concludes.