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  • Case ID: 338379
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Identifying MAC Addresses of Packaged nRF52832 based Tags in production

Kuldeep Chandel

We have successfully developed a Bluetooth-based tag using the nRF52832 controller and are gearing up for bulk production. While the development phase has been completed successfully, we are now facing a production challenge: how to reliably identify and log the MAC address of each tag after the final packaging layer has been applied and we have many devices nearby.

During the production process, the MAC address of each device is unique and critical for operations, tracking, and deployment. However, direct access to the hardware is no longer possible after packaging, making it difficult to scan or verify the MAC address.

We are exploring efficient, scalable, and non-invasive solutions, such as BLE broadcasting and external labeling. We would greatly appreciate your insights or recommendations if you have expertise or proven methods to handle this issue effectively.

Note: We want to print the MAC address of each device on the casing.

We look forward to learning from your experiences and exploring your suggested solutions.

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  • +1

    Hi,

    The easiest would of course to read it out directly from the device, but as you say you no longer have physical access.

    One solution is to make a small faraday cage with a BLE sniffer in it. Then place devices into this cage one by one, and you should be able to read out the MAC address of each device.

    Another alternative is to OTA each device in order, and give it a specific name for BLE advertising. For example "CURRENT TEST". Then you can use a BLE app to connect to each device in order and read out the MAC address. Then OTA back to the original program.

    Alternativley, the above method can maybe be improved if your device has any external input, such as a button. Then you can OTA  the same  test app to all devices at the same time, and then only advertise when the button is held.

    The common factor on all these methods are that you need to interact with each device one at a time. But if you need to label MAC addresses for them, you need to do this in some way either way.

    These were the ideas I had. What do you think?

    Regards,
    Sigurd Hellesvik

Reply
  • +1

    Hi,

    The easiest would of course to read it out directly from the device, but as you say you no longer have physical access.

    One solution is to make a small faraday cage with a BLE sniffer in it. Then place devices into this cage one by one, and you should be able to read out the MAC address of each device.

    Another alternative is to OTA each device in order, and give it a specific name for BLE advertising. For example "CURRENT TEST". Then you can use a BLE app to connect to each device in order and read out the MAC address. Then OTA back to the original program.

    Alternativley, the above method can maybe be improved if your device has any external input, such as a button. Then you can OTA  the same  test app to all devices at the same time, and then only advertise when the button is held.

    The common factor on all these methods are that you need to interact with each device one at a time. But if you need to label MAC addresses for them, you need to do this in some way either way.

    These were the ideas I had. What do you think?

    Regards,
    Sigurd Hellesvik

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