Serial Port Profile (SPP)
SPP defines how to set up virtual serial ports and connect two
Bluetooth enabled devices.
Usage Scenarios
A scenario would be using two devices, such as PCs or laptops, as virtual serial ports and then connecting the two devices via Bluetooth technology.
Example Products
Here are a few examples of the types of devices that you might find using the SPP:
- PC
- Laptop
Getting Technical
The SPP defines two roles, Device A and Device B.
- Device A – This is the device that takes initiative to form a connection to another device (initiator).
- Device B – This is the device that waits for another device to take initiative to connect (acceptor).
The Baseband, LMP and L2CAP are the OSI layer 1 and 2 Bluetooth protocols. RFCOMM is the Bluetooth adaptation of GSM TS 07.10, providing a transport protocol for serial port emulation. SDP is the Bluetooth Service Discovery Protocol.
The port emulation layer shown in the figure to the left is the entity emulating the serial port, or providing an API to applications.
The applications on both sides are typically legacy applications, able and wanting to communicate over a serial cable (which in this case is emulated). But legacy applications cannot know about Bluetooth procedures for setting up emulated serial cables, which is why they need help from some sort of Bluetooth aware helper application on both sides. (These issues are not explicitly addressed in this profile; the major concern here is for Bluetooth interoperability.)
Need more? View the Serial Port Profile Specification.
