Patent ID: 6901057

Claim:
A method for connecting a first unit to an ad hoc network comprising at least two units having different roles, the units being adapted to communicate according to the Bluetooth specification, the ad hoc network comprising at least one piconet formed according to the Bluetooth specification, the roles of the units in the ad hoc network comprising master and slave, the method comprising the steps of: the first unit establishing contact with at least one of the units of the ad hoc network and said at least one unit, in the establishment of contact, sending information to the first unit, the information including an indication of the role of said at least one unit in the ad hoc network; the first unit thereafter, based on said information, connecting to said at least one unit, the first unit thereby becoming connected to the ad hoc network; wherein the step of establishing contact, the first unit sends at least one INQUIRY message and said at least one unit responds by sending an INQUIRY RESPONSE message comprising a Frequency Hop Synchronization (FHS) packet, the FHS packet including information of the status of said at least one unit in the at least one piconet, the FHS packet further including information as to at least one of the following: whether the responding unit is connected to at least one of said at least one piconet, whether the responding unit is a slave in at least one of said at least one piconet, whether the responding unit prefers to be a master or a slave after a subsequent PAGE procedure, number of slaves in at least one of said at least one piconet, the BD_ADD(s) of at least one master unit of said at least one piconet where the responding unit is a slave member, the clock value(s) of at least one master unit of said at least one piconet where the responding unit is a slave member, inter-piconet scheduling parameters at least one unit that is connected to at least two piconets, the battery status of the responding unit, traffic parameters in at least one of the piconets or priority parameters.