Bluetooth can support an asynchronous data channel, up to three simultaneous synchronous voice channels, or a channel that simultaneously supports asynchronous data and synchronous voice. Each unit can simultaneously communicate with up to seven other units per piconet. Although all devices are peer units, one acts as the master and the others as slaves for the duration of the connection to the piconet. The master unit provides the hopping sequence to synchronize all the devices in the piconet. The master unit can put slaves into the hold state to conserve power during quiet network periods.
Slaves can also demand to be put into the hold state.
In the sniff state, a slave device listens to the piconet at a reduced rate, saving power. The park state is used to place a device in a reduced power state but it does not participate in the traffic while maintaining synchronization. A scatternet is a collection of piconets operating independently and are not synchronized. This allows a large group of devices to network with each other by means of smaller sub nets. The Market HomeRF is also in the arena of wireless networking using the same 2.4 GHz frequency-hopping transmission scheme.