Project PDA

There is a wide variety of hardware available for adding Bluetooth support to your computer. In Bluetooth, there are several profiles available and they are arranged in a hierarchical fashion. For example, in order to use the headset profile, a device must also include the lower level profiles such as the serial port and general access profiles. Devices fall into several categories:

USB dongle

Plugs into the USB port for adding Bluetooth support. This device is the most common and economical.

Built-in

Increasingly, laptops are shipping with a Bluetooth transmitter built in. Typically this device appears to the operating system as if it were a USB device.

PC card

Plugs into a laptop’s PCMCIA slot and provides a serial interface to the Bluetooth transmitter.

CF card

Behaves in the same way as a PCMCIA card, and it is used with PDA devices for adding Bluetooth support.

Serial dongle

A Bluetooth transmitter that plugs into the serial port. In the early days of Bluetooth deployment, it was a popular choice; today, however, it is not a recommended option

Discoverability

A Bluetooth device is discoverable if it can be found by another device’s inquiry. During discovery, the inquiring device broadcasts a specially coded message. As remote devices receive the message, they send a return message indicating their presence. In most circumstances, you must make a device discoverable in order to initiate bonding.