Term of the Day: Piconet

[Keefe]

Piconet

A network of devices connected in an ad hoc fashion using Bluetooth technology. A piconet is formed when at least two devices, such as a portable PC and a cellular phone, connect. A piconet can support up to eight devices. When a piconet is formed, one device acts as the master while the others act as slaves for the duration of the piconet connection. A piconet is sometimes called a PAN.

[Keefe]

Follow up term: Scatternet


A group of independent and non-synchronized piconets that share at least one common Bluetooth device. Bluetooth devices must have point-to-multipoint capability to engage in scatternet communication. There may be a maximum of 10 fully loaded piconets in a scatternet.