Nordic SoftDevice Controller versus Zephyr BLE Controller (CONFIG_BT_LL_SW_SPLIT=y)

[Phobios]

Hi,

in my product I'm using NCS2.5.1 with 20 peripherals on one central. the peripherals have a connection interval of 2 seconds. Lately was trying out the Zephyr BLE Controller (instead of the SoftDevice Controller) and have noticed that the response in the communication is faster, but the current consumtion increases. This is because of a different behaviour every connection interval. I've made two measurements.

What you see in the pictures are the connection interval awakes and current spikes. You can see the SoftDevice only awakes once where the Zephyr BLE Controller awakes three times.

Is there a way to set up some different options with the Zephyr BLE Controller to lower the current consumption? I wan't to experiment, whether I get a faster response time with the Zephyr controller.

Thanks and Best Regards,

Phobios

Measurement with the SoftDevice controller

Measurement with the Zephyr BLE controller

[Susheel Nuguru]

I think Softdevice controller is little better power efficiency wise, that is why we keep recommending customers to use it. But when you choose Zephyr controller, I think some of the default configs change for other parameters. Best to compare the ".config" file in the build folder with these two different configurations and see if you need to fine tune some of the parameters relevant for BLE. 

[Phobios]

Thanks Susheel for your answer and hint with the config. I've played around with several settings but in the end I was switching back to the softdevice controller, cause is was more power efficient and battery power is most important in our project.

Best Regards,

Phobios