1.11 Summary
The Bluetooth core promoters group has produced a specification for short range, low cost wireless communications. This is the Bluetooth core specification. The complete Bluetooth specification also includes profiles which detail how applications should use the Bluetooth protocol stack, and a brand book which covers how the Bluetooth brand should be presented.
The Bluetooth specification not only covers how to set up short range wireless links, but also describes the Bluetooth qualification process. By putting their products through this process, companies that join the Bluetooth SIG can get a free license to use the Bluetooth wireless technology and Bluetooth brand.
Bluetooth wireless technology allows up to eight devices to connect together in a communicating group called a piconet. The maximum speed of a link in a piconet is 723.2 kb/s at the baseband layer (the data rate seen at the Application Layer will be lower due to the intervening layers of the protocol stack using some of the bandwidth). Different piconets can be linked into scatternets, but the data rate between scatternets will be lower than the rate possible within a single piconet.