Everything nRF52840
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Andreas Spiess recently gave his review on on the two new Arduino "nano" 33 BLE offerings (which use the nRF2840):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8GLXSebQVCEHe seems cautiously optimistic about the BLE 33s. From his perspective, now that the hardware is being sold, the onus is on Arduino to make the Arduino hardware libraries run on it in a transparent way, just like all the other Arduino's that we're all familiar with. Hopefully that does happen. In the meantime, and even if it doesn't, there are the mBed libraries.
The only reasons he gives for preferring the ESP32 over the Arduino BLE 33's are the ESP32's faster speed, larger memory, and the ability to do OTA firmware updates. As for where the nRF52840 scores big over the ESP32, the things he mentioned were that it consumes much less power and it can be a USB host.
I'm hoping that BLE 33 OTA firmware updates will be solved by somebody soon and made available as part of the Arduino IDE, just as it eventually was for the ESP8266. I mean Nordic already has a highly secure FOTA, so it just needs to be exposed in a way that people can easily use it through the Arduino IDE. If that never happens, then I'd wager the lack of it will kill the BLE 33. Likewise, if it does happen, it may very well propel BLE 33's success.
Interestingly, Andreas points to a $5 nRF52 Ebyte module as a cost equalizer, so he doesn't seem to see cost as a discriminator, especially not in the long term.
By the way, and unrelated to the above, there is now yet another radio standard vying for IOT adoption. This one, made by Radiocraft: https://www.digikey.com/en/articles/techzone/2019/sep/how-to-quickly-start-low-power-wireless-iot-sensing The energy performance specs sound maybe better than LoRa or SigFox, so who knows? It can do OTA firmware updates by the way. With the marketplace becoming more crowded, FOTA is now an important must-have for being taken seriously. Why do I say that? Any vendor who has a FOTA is devoting at least one entire slide to it in their marketing presentations.
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@NeverDie Thanks for the summary :-)
Andreas Spiess also never takes things like privacy, and to a lesser degree security, into consideration when he talks about things. For that reason I boycott anything that uses IoT and Wifi in the same sentence.
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I found a good place to do range testing.... too bad I didn't bring the gear!
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The nRF53840 PDK announced: https://www.mouser.com/pdfDocs/nRF5340PDKPB.pdf
However, so far I haven't seen even a preliminary datasheet for the nRF53840. The closest I've seen is what's in the above PDF. Based on that, it will be a dual processor arrangement, with the faster processor having 512K RAM. It describes the network processor as "ultra low power," which is also how it describes the 2.4ghz radio. So, it sounds as though the theme will mainly be utilizing less power than the nRF52840.
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Found this repo: https://github.com/xriss/nrfx. It has standalone nrf peripheral drivers extracted from an SDK so they can be used in any project without using actual Nordic SDK.
Now with release of a PineTime (opensource smart watch based on nrf52832) we can expect many wonderful opensource projects with our beloved MCU :) -
Found this repo: https://github.com/xriss/nrfx. It has standalone nrf peripheral drivers extracted from an SDK so they can be used in any project without using actual Nordic SDK.
Now with release of a PineTime (opensource smart watch based on nrf52832) we can expect many wonderful opensource projects with our beloved MCU :)@monte Is PineTime the best of the currently available nRF52 watch options? If so, since it's offered at $24.99, I think I may want to order one.
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@monte Is PineTime the best of the currently available nRF52 watch options? If so, since it's offered at $24.99, I think I may want to order one.
@monte said in Everything nRF52840:
Found this repo: https://github.com/xriss/nrfx
Gone already ...
@NeverDie said in Everything nRF52840:
@monte Is PineTime the best of the currently available nRF52 watch options? If so, since it's offered at $24.99, I think I may want to order one.
A very interesting project, too bad they are using NRF52832 and not NRF52840, the max SPI speed on ...32 is too low (8MHz) and I'm afraid the LCD refresh will be annoyingly slow :(
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@monte said in Everything nRF52840:
Found this repo: https://github.com/xriss/nrfx
Gone already ...
@NeverDie said in Everything nRF52840:
@monte Is PineTime the best of the currently available nRF52 watch options? If so, since it's offered at $24.99, I think I may want to order one.
A very interesting project, too bad they are using NRF52832 and not NRF52840, the max SPI speed on ...32 is too low (8MHz) and I'm afraid the LCD refresh will be annoyingly slow :(
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@alowhum said in Everything nRF52840:
From what I heard Pine was thinking about upgrading the watch to the NRF52840?
Maybe so. Their website does say: "Note: Final revision may use higher powered hardware including the nRF52840 and/or 16 MB of storage rather than 8 MB."
On the other hand, what's currently on sale in their store is an nRF52832: https://store.pine64.org/?product=pinetime-dev-kit
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@monte Is PineTime the best of the currently available nRF52 watch options? If so, since it's offered at $24.99, I think I may want to order one.
@NeverDie said in Everything nRF52840:
@monte Is PineTime the best of the currently available nRF52 watch options? If so, since it's offered at $24.99, I think I may want to order one.
There is also the BangleJs/NodeWatch (52832) which is bulkier, more expensive too but with more features, than pinetime. Personally when bulky, I prefer a round shape..still it's quite big, and certainly needs care on UI (round shape vs square display).
This is a very nice project for BLE based smartwatch I think, they have done lot of work on software. -
@monte said in Everything nRF52840:
Found this repo: https://github.com/xriss/nrfx
Gone already ...
@NeverDie said in Everything nRF52840:
@monte Is PineTime the best of the currently available nRF52 watch options? If so, since it's offered at $24.99, I think I may want to order one.
A very interesting project, too bad they are using NRF52832 and not NRF52840, the max SPI speed on ...32 is too low (8MHz) and I'm afraid the LCD refresh will be annoyingly slow :(
@Nca78 said in Everything nRF52840:
Gone already ...
Strange. Yesterday this guy was mentioned in twitter by a Pine64 with regards to his firmware for PineTime. That's how i found that repo. Maybe he realized there was some problems with license?
I'm afraid the LCD refresh will be annoyingly slow
Yes full screen refresh seems to be more like a slideshow. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_x6B-L5KOtU
You probably would want to only partially refresh the display.
Now that's sold as a dev unit with unglued back cover so maybe they will initially upgrade to 52840, I don't think it will be that hard, if they haven't produce large batch of this revision. But for sure display with this resolution needs faster SPI.@NeverDie said in Everything nRF52840:
Is PineTime the best of the currently available nRF52 watch options?
For this price It well may be. Anyway, for tinkering with nrf I guess it may be the best option.
@scalz didn't see this one before. Strange choice of square display in round body. There are plenty round displays available on a market.
I personally like more the approach Pine64 is taking - the lowest possible price and orientation on the opensource community to polish the product. With all the hype they are getting with PinePhone and PienBook Pro I believe they can make it all work. -
@Nca78 said in Everything nRF52840:
Gone already ...
Strange. Yesterday this guy was mentioned in twitter by a Pine64 with regards to his firmware for PineTime. That's how i found that repo. Maybe he realized there was some problems with license?
I'm afraid the LCD refresh will be annoyingly slow
Yes full screen refresh seems to be more like a slideshow. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_x6B-L5KOtU
You probably would want to only partially refresh the display.
Now that's sold as a dev unit with unglued back cover so maybe they will initially upgrade to 52840, I don't think it will be that hard, if they haven't produce large batch of this revision. But for sure display with this resolution needs faster SPI.@NeverDie said in Everything nRF52840:
Is PineTime the best of the currently available nRF52 watch options?
For this price It well may be. Anyway, for tinkering with nrf I guess it may be the best option.
@scalz didn't see this one before. Strange choice of square display in round body. There are plenty round displays available on a market.
I personally like more the approach Pine64 is taking - the lowest possible price and orientation on the opensource community to polish the product. With all the hype they are getting with PinePhone and PienBook Pro I believe they can make it all work.@monte said in Everything nRF52840:
maybe they will initially upgrade to 52840, I don't think it will be that hard, if they haven't produce large batch of this revision.
well, imho switching to nrf52840 won't be a direct upgrade for them. 52840 has more pins, usb etc so not same pcb for sure, then software support (waiting after community for dev too ??). it will certainly be a new watch I think (if they are the designers of the pcb, no idea).
Still, it is cheap for playing with nrf52832 so that's a good point.regarding the banglejs watch, yes it's too bad they chose a square display (this wastes some space).
I don't have one of these yet, but considering to play with banglejs ecosystem at some point (for watch I would prefer, but that's my preference, to use BLE for more interactions with phone etc).
In that case I will buy one at least (once it's back in stock) for supporting creator and his team.I have my opinion on hype and long term reality. Both pinetime and banglejs/nodewatch are opensource. You could for example use banglejs framework on any nrf52832 device/watch, with some coding of course (regarding pins mapping, sensors and peripherals), but that didn't look that hard when I looked at the code.
I would prefer a better looking and more compact smartwatch, but for tinkering and playing they both seem fun.
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@monte said in Everything nRF52840:
maybe they will initially upgrade to 52840, I don't think it will be that hard, if they haven't produce large batch of this revision.
well, imho switching to nrf52840 won't be a direct upgrade for them. 52840 has more pins, usb etc so not same pcb for sure, then software support (waiting after community for dev too ??). it will certainly be a new watch I think (if they are the designers of the pcb, no idea).
Still, it is cheap for playing with nrf52832 so that's a good point.regarding the banglejs watch, yes it's too bad they chose a square display (this wastes some space).
I don't have one of these yet, but considering to play with banglejs ecosystem at some point (for watch I would prefer, but that's my preference, to use BLE for more interactions with phone etc).
In that case I will buy one at least (once it's back in stock) for supporting creator and his team.I have my opinion on hype and long term reality. Both pinetime and banglejs/nodewatch are opensource. You could for example use banglejs framework on any nrf52832 device/watch, with some coding of course (regarding pins mapping, sensors and peripherals), but that didn't look that hard when I looked at the code.
I would prefer a better looking and more compact smartwatch, but for tinkering and playing they both seem fun.
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It turns out that the very first solar powered watch, made by Seiko in 1969, had a side read display:
Though it gives up valuable display real estate, maybe that style would be easier to DIY in a form that wouldn't be too large to wear without embarrassment. I kinda like it myself: in theory I could check the time without having to turn my wrist. -
It turns out that the very first solar powered watch, made by Seiko in 1969, had a side read display:
Though it gives up valuable display real estate, maybe that style would be easier to DIY in a form that wouldn't be too large to wear without embarrassment. I kinda like it myself: in theory I could check the time without having to turn my wrist. -
This guy had an interesting idea that could probably be improved upon:
To make the watch thinner he spread the parts over different links in the wristband.
https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:718989 -
@NeverDie here is an alternative that uses TEG for power https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/smartwatch-powered-by-you-matrix-powerwatch-2
@mfalkvidd Dave Jones reviewed that very watch and was fairly negative about it:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y4OeOQtiW0wEven so, it looks as though they raised over two million dollars!
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@mfalkvidd Dave Jones reviewed that very watch and was fairly negative about it:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y4OeOQtiW0wEven so, it looks as though they raised over two million dollars!
@NeverDie I watched a vlog (unfortunately in Swedish) about it about a week ago. The owner had used it for two months without charging it and was very enthusiastic about it. He said he used it for getting notifications, so he must be using the bluetooth feature.
Dave does have a point though that swapping the battery every 2-3 years isn't that cumbersome.
On the other hand, the charging capabilities of the Toyota Prius might have been considered a gimmick when it was introduced in 1997, and today we have electric cars with fairly long range. Technology gets better, and must start somewhere.
