WPAN Technology Summary
Bluetooth wireless communications is one instance of a WPAN technology. Other technologies also can be used in WPANs, and we reviewed two of these, IrDA and HomeRF.
These and other mechanisms can be employed to implement WPANs, but each is optimized for specific usage, applications, or domains. Although in some respects, certain technologies might be viewed as competing in the WPAN space, we believe that at least the ones discussed here are complementary to each other. Each has specific advantages that make it particularly suitable for certain environments or applications, and we expect that multiple WPAN technologies will exist in the foreseeable future.