nRF5 action!

[NeverDie]

@Toyman Thanks! I'm going to order a couple of the Nordic nRF52840 PDK's to audition now that modules are on the horizon. Shall be interesting to see how the range compares in a normal home environment. Also, 256K RAM and 1M of flash sounds like such a luxury!

[Jokgi]

@NeverDie Note that all the nRF52840 based products being showcased now (including the Fanstel modules) are using the engineering silicon. There is Errata on these parts. Production devices will be available Q1-18.

[NeverDie]

@Jokgi said in nRF5 Bluetooth action!:

@NeverDie Note that all the nRF52840 based products being showcased now (including the Fanstel modules) are using the engineering silicon. There is Errata on these parts. Production devices will be available Q1-18.

Do you advise waiting, or is it sufficiently non-buggy that it's likely to work unless doing something obscure?

[NeverDie]

@d00616 Problem #1 is that there does not yet appear to be an Arduino board definition for the nR5F2840, as there is already for the nRF52832 and nRF51822. Is that correct? Or does one already exist somewhere? It's critical path to testing code on the nRF52840 PDK.

[NeverDie]

Hmmm... Looks like there is an nRF52840 "variant": https://github.com/lpercifield/arduino-nRF5/commit/d55d54a1bdc479acc259e131f0f445c5da8e02b3
Would that work? If so, how exactly should it be added so that it will appear in the Arduino IDE board manager list of boards?

[Toyman]

@NeverDie the main issue it's "65 commits behind master" so it's outdated in all areas except 840
Theoretical path is to make a fork of current sandeep's branch and then merge the changes from the repository you found. But given the above, it won't be easy.

[NeverDie]

Gosh, I'm wishing now that I hadn't ordered the PDK. I guess I'll just return it for a refund. Since it sounds like literally no one else is presently using the 840, I'd rather move forward on the 832. I'm more interested in the 2mbps datarate anyway (for the reason below). And I'm pretty sure PA versions of the nRF52832 will beat the range of an unamplified nRF52840.

[NeverDie]

@d00616 said in nRF5 Bluetooth action!:

Great job. If I'm not wrong the method allows nearly 1 year of listening time with a CR2032.

Yup, based on the latest measurements, I estimate an average current drain of about 25 microamps. So, assuming a CR2032 has 240mah of useable current, that comes out to about 1.1 years of listening time. Or more than 13 years on a pair of Energizer Lithium AA's. Pretty cool. :) And that's listening for a packet once every 100ms. It could last much longer if it were to listen less often.

[scalz]

@NeverDie said in nRF5 Bluetooth action!:

Gosh, I'm wishing now that I hadn't ordered the PDK. I guess I'll just return it for a refund. Since it sounds like literally no one else is presently using the 840, I'd rather move forward on the 832. I'm more interested in the 2mbps datarate anyway (for the reason below). And I'm pretty sure PA versions of the nRF52832 will beat the range of an unamplified nRF52840.

I looked at the fanstel modules a while ago, but like guys said above, these are beta mcus with errata. And not arduino uptodate for the same reason i guess.

I have one 840pdk too. for tests :) with apache mynewt. Because I have only one 840 board I can't tell you about the range because it needs two boards for checking that, two boards with full BLE5 Long range (and 832 is not BLE5 full range).

No idea about 840 vs 832+PA but 840 is already PA integrated which is pretty cool. It also has some other nice features. Range tests regarding BLE5 long range are impressive imho, indoor or not, and from different mcu manufacturers (some have nice parts).
I'm not sure though, if 840, is compatible with NRF24. And, as I'm talking about BLE, I prefer to say it again, for others.. BLE is not MySensors :)

[NeverDie]

Are there any examples of how to control the potential BLE5 capabilities of this chip using code developed in the Arduino IDE? I recognize that it's presently a separate thing from MySensors, which is using the proprietary modes to ensure backward compatability to the nRF24, but surely getting some hooks into BLE5--even if it's just high level stuff--would be beneficial wouldn't it?

[NeverDie]

For instance, how hard would it be to create a simple serial bridge so view serial output on your bluetooth phone, the way @sundberg84 is doing with a specialized bluetooth module: https://forum.mysensors.org/topic/6340/debug-to-a-sd-card-module

[d00616]

@NeverDie said in nRF5 Bluetooth action!:

For instance, how hard would it be to create a simple serial bridge so view serial output on your bluetooth phone, the way @sundberg84 is doing with a specialized bluetooth module: https://forum.mysensors.org/topic/6340/debug-to-a-sd-card-module

For similar functionality, there is an MY_DEBUG_OTA feature in MySensors development branch. You can send log messages to any node in the MySensors network.

The NRF5 MySensors port is running directly on the MCU hardware. Using the SoftDevice is like running an Operating System. There are limitations using the Hardware and APIs have to use. You are loosing control over the Radio, some Timers and RTC, Crypto components and the memory layout.

The reason the SoftDevice isn't supported is the old licence model. This model is changed with SDK14.

In my opinion with MySensors 2.x it isn't meaningful to play with the multiplexing of the radio module. I think this requires more changes in MySensors to handle the time when the MCU is in BLE mode.

If you are interested implementing a dual stack software, then I think the Arduino Primo port is a good point to start. This is based on the NRF5 SDK. The Primo port has no support for NRF51 devices.

If you are not restricted to Arduino, you can also see MyNewt or Zephyr. Both have BLE Open Sorurce implementations for the NRF5 MCUs.

[scalz]

I agree with @d00616 points above.
And, sure bluetooth would be nice for interacting or debugging.

In my opinion, maybe I'm wrong, for my network, I would prefer MySensors NRF ESB, in general.

• "more secure" than bluetooth. "harder" to access Mysensors ESB than bluetooth for example, plus some security issue that can happen with bluetooth, phones..
• more devices in a network

[NeverDie]

@d00616 What do you foresee regarding the nRF52840? It's presently unsupported.

[NeverDie]

For those who haven't seen it, this Fanstel nRF52832 module is impressively small:

Looks as though it even includes the antenna!

[NeverDie]

Good news. The Fanstel 832X (https://static1.squarespace.com/static/561459a2e4b0b39f5cefa12e/t/59a5a03d579fb36451a25f01/1504026688443/BlueNor_BT832X_datasheets.pdf) module contains the sky66112 (http://www.skyworksinc.com/Product/3152/SKY77927-11z-. which has a PA and an LNA on it. The Rx gain is 11dB, and the TX gain is 22dB. So, this should make for a very good gateway module.

[Toyman]

@NeverDie they even provide a piece of code to properly activate it

[d00616]

@NeverDie said in nRF5 Bluetooth action!:

@d00616 What do you foresee regarding the nRF52840? It's presently unsupported.

In those places where it was obvious, I took the design of the NRF52840 into consideration. I think, when an Arduino port supporting Sketches without SoftDevices is available, then porting is simple. At the moment, I have no plans to expedite an Arduino port.

[Toyman]

@d00616 said in nRF5 Bluetooth action!:

when an Arduino port supporting Sketches without SoftDevices is availableI

I doubt it will ever happen as all 3 major nrf5 arduino implementations all rely on Softdevice (Primo, Adafruit and Sandeep)

[NeverDie]

@Toyman said in nRF5 Bluetooth action!:

I doubt it will ever happen as all 3 major nrf5 arduino implementations all rely on Softdevice (Primo, Adafruit and Sandeep)

I don't follow what you mean. Aren't we already running the MySensors code without installing the softdevice on the nrf51822 and the nrf52832?