Overview of Bluetooth Technology

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Bluetooth is an open standard for short-range radio frequency (RF) communication. Bluetooth technology is used primarily to establish wireless personal area networks (WPAN), commonly referred to as ad hoc or peer-to-peer (P2P) networks. Bluetooth technology has been integrated into many types of business and consumer devices, including cellular phones, personal digital assistants (PDA), laptops, automobiles, printers, and headsets. This allows users to form ad hoc networks between a wide variety of devices to transfer voice and data. Bluetooth is a low-cost, low-power technology that provides a mechanism for creating small wireless networks on an ad hoc basis, known as piconets. A piconet is composed of two or more Bluetooth devices in close physical proximity that operate on the same channel using the same frequency hopping sequence.

An example of a piconet is a Bluetooth-based connection between a cellular phone and a Bluetooth-enabled ear bud. Bluetooth piconets are often established on a temporary and changing basis, which offers communication flexibility and scalability between mobile devices. Some key benefits of Bluetooth technology are:

• Cable replacement. Bluetooth technology replaces a variety of cables, such as those traditionally used for peripheral devices (e.g., mouse and keyboard connections), printers, and wireless headsets and ear buds that interface with personal computers (PC) or mobile telephones. 

• Ease of file sharing. A Bluetooth-enabled device can form a piconet to support file sharing capabilities with other Bluetooth devices, such as laptops.

• Wireless synchronization. Bluetooth provides automatic synchronization between Bluetoothenabled devices. For example, Bluetooth allows synchronization of contact information contained in electronic address books and calendars. 

• Internet connectivity. A Bluetooth device with Internet connectivity can share that access with other Bluetooth devices. For example, a laptop can use a Bluetooth connection to have a mobile phone establish a dial-up connection, so that the laptop can access the Internet through the phone.

Bluetooth technology was originally conceived by Ericsson in 1994. Ericsson, IBM, Intel, Nokia, and Toshiba formed the Bluetooth Special Interest Group (SIG), a not-for-profit trade association developed to drive the development of Bluetooth products and serve as the governing body for Bluetooth specifications. Bluetooth is standardized within the IEEE 802.15 Working Group for Wireless Personal Area Networks that formed in early 1999 as IEEE 802.15.1-2002.

This section provides an overview of Bluetooth technology, such as frequency and data rates, range, and architecture.
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