Query regarding BLE MAC address for nRF52833-QDAA

[Jhakan]

Hello Nordic team,

We are using the nRF52833-QDAA SoC in our new project. While the chipset is advertising over BLE, we observed that the nRF Connect application displays a BLE MAC address.

Could you please confirm if this MAC address is unique and remains unchanged even after a power-on reset?  Kindly confirm if this  MAC address is chip specific & ensure that it isn't reused in any future chipsets?

Thanks & Regards,
Jhakan.M

[Hung Bui]

Hi Jhankan, 

I confirm what Jörg said. It depends on what you do in your firmware. In most case if you don't use CONFIG_BT_PRIVACY=y the address is taken from FICR and is a random static address. 
There is a chance that you will have 2 chips having the same MAC address but the chance is very small (1/2^64) . 

If you want unique address (public address), you would need to register your company address with IEEE and has your own address domain to allocate. 
Please read here: https://academy.nordicsemi.com/courses/bluetooth-low-energy-fundamentals/lessons/lesson-2-bluetooth-le-advertising/topic/bluetooth-address/

[Jhakan]

Hi Hung Bai,
Thanks for the clarity. As mentioned in the link provided it is specified that Random static address is configurable at boot up and is fixed through the lifetime of the device. So does this indicate that each time I flash my nRF52833-QDAA chipset the random static address may vary. Kindly provide insight on this

[Hung Bui]

Hi Jhakan, 

Jhakan said:

So does this indicate that each time I flash my nRF52833-QDAA chipset the random static address may vary.

No it will be the same address. By default the address is derived from the 64 bit Device ID in the FICR. It's a fixed value. Please take a look at the nRF52833 Datasheet.