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

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.