BLED112 from silicon lab to connect using Bluetooth Low Energy

[m.daldo]

I want to know if I can use the dongle BLED112 with the bluetooth low energy app.

If not, which one should I consider?

I am trying to replicate the experience given by the phone to connect to a bluetooth device and be able to change some configuration of the device itself.

Thank you for the support.

[Edvin]

Hello,

Are you talking about the nRF Connect for Desktop -> Bluetooth Low Energy app? If so, you can not use the BLED112 with this. The reason is that it only works with a set of precompiled .hex files that the bluetooth app will program to the connected device, based on the type of board that is connected. And it has to be an official Nordic board, because it uses the softdevice (Nordic's Bluetooth stack), which only works on the Nordic devices.

So you can use any of our Development kits, or the nRF52840 dongle. 

Note that the dongle doesn't have a debugger, so it is not as versatile as a development platform, but for simple tasks as using it together with the nRF Connect for Desktop -> Bluetooth Low Energy, it should be just fine.

Best regards,

Edvin

[m.daldo]

Hi Edvin, thanks for your answer.
The sensor I want to connect is based on TI-device with the corresponding TI-stack.
Would it be possible to link it using Bluetooth Low Energy app without reprogramming the sensor if using one of the compatible dongles?

[Edvin]

The Bluetooth Low Energy app (given that you are speaking of the nRF Connect for Desktop -> Bluetooth Low Energy app) uses a Nordic DK/Dongle to perform BLE tasks, such as scanning, advertising, connecting and interact with BLE services/characteristics in a visual way. 

If the TI device is using Bluetooth Low Energy, and it is advertising, you should be able to find it and connect to it if you are using a Nordic device plugged in your computer. You can also use the nRF Connect for Android/iOS to see if you can find the TI device. 

Please note that the Bluetooth Low Energy app is mostly intended for development. What do you want to do with the TI device when you have connected to it? If you want to store the sensor data on your computer, or use them for anything useful, you probably have to write your own application, either for the Nordic device, or the computer, so that you can take the BLE data and store it somewhere on your computer. 

It is still a bit vague for me what you actually want to do.

Best regards,

Edvin

[m.daldo]

The device is discoverable using the phone app.
We want to change some settings on the device and since the strings to copy paste are quite long, to be able to repeat the operation using the laptop would be much easier.

If you say I can reproduce a similar experience with the laptop, even if it is supposed to be a development tool, I will buy the dongle and test it myself.

See image as a reference.

[Edvin]

Indeed, the experience is similar, but you'll have the benefit of a computer's clip-board:

It is not possible to switch between ascii (text) and binary (uint8), but text is the default (at least on the windows version) of the Bluetooth app. I believe windows and mac are still using uint8.

If you need it to be uint8, I think you can downgrade the version of the app a couple of notches, back to where it was binary on windows as well.

Best regards,

Edvin