AbstractWe analyze the performance of Bluetooth piconets under bursty traffic and finite buffer sizes. We model the joint probability distributions of uplink and downlink queues using theM[x]/G/1/Kmodel with vacations and derive buffer blocking probabilities at slaves and at the master. The results, which are confirmed through simulations, provide some practical guidelines as to the sizing of device buffers. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.