Bluetooth Revealed: The Insider's Guide to an Open Specification for Global Wireless Communications (2nd Edition)

For users, the new Bluetooth wireless standard will cut through the complexity of wireless communications, enabling devices to communicate seamlessly. Bluetooth Revealed offers the first insider's view of the Bluetooth standards: crucial information and insight professionals need to start implementing Bluetooth solutions now. After a high-level introduction to Bluetooth and the standards process, it reviews key design decisions driven by the use of the 2.4 GHz spectrum, power consumption restrictions, requirements for a global standard, and other key issues. It presents each key Bluetooth usage model, including cordless computing, advanced headsets, file transfer/synchronization, dial-up networking, speakerphones and conference table applications, hidden computing, and more. Next, it reviews the entire specification in unprecedented depth: its purpose, scope, structure, and interrelationships. The entire Bluetooth protocol stack is covered, including radio, baseband, and software layers; hardware and interfaces; and Link Manager and Logical Link Control and Adaptation Protocol (L2CAP). The book also contains detailed information on each major Bluetooth profile, showing how to achieve interoperable solutions for a wide variety of applications. Finally, the authors preview Bluetooth's future, including new automotive, imaging, printing, and other applications.

The Bluetooth specification, which describes a way for electronic devices to communicate with one another at close range by way of radio signals, has great potential. The open standard promises to make mobile telephones, personal organizers, and digital cameras wireless and far easier to use. In Bluetooth Revealed, a couple of experts who helped hammer out the Bluetooth specification (version 1.0B, specifically) take a shot at elaborating upon the contents of the standards documents. They also share some of their imaginings about how Bluetooth connectivity might be put to use. The result of their efforts is a surprisingly readable book that should fit the needs of hardware and software developers who plan to support the Bluetooth platform.

After some discussion of wireless devices and the generalities of the Bluetooth specification, the authors approach their subject in progressively greater detail, defining terms and referring to conceptual diagrams as they go. Emphasizing protocols that are unique to Bluetooth communication (such as RFCOMM, which allows applications to treat a radio link just like a hard-wired serial port), the authors show exactly how Bluetooth devices arrange themselves into wireless networks. Then, they explain how these networked devices exchange commands, files, and multimedia streams. They give fair hearing to the specification's shortcomings, too; noting, for example, that it's good for sharing voice signals among devices, but not so good for sharing high-quality music signals.

The authors of Bluetooth Revealed would be the first to concede that the Bluetooth standard is evolving, and certainly will change as more manufacturers adopt and supplement it. Regardless, this book is a valuable statement of the Bluetooth vision, straight from a couple of its creators. --David Wall

Topics covered: The Bluetooth wireless networking specification (version 1.0B) and its component parts, including the radio, baseband, link-controller, and link-manager layers. Special coverage goes to the Logical Link Control and Adaptation Protocol (L2CAP), the Host Controller Interface (HCI), RFCOMM serial ports, and the Service Discovery Protocol. Bluetooth futures appear here, too.