Range of BLE

[kjell bystedt]

Do you a way to get better range for BLE. Distance outdoor Number of samples per second using the development kit. ( 12 bytes) 15m 100 samples 40m 60 samples 50m 50 samples 60m 40 samples 70m 30 samples

We would like to have 100 samples for about 40 meters. could this help us www.nordicsemi.com/.../eng-GB /Kjell

[Hung Bui]

Hi Kjell,

Could you let me know your connection parameters ?

Have you set Tx power to +4dBm using sd_ble_gap_tx_power_set ?

What is the master device you used for the test ?

Have you tuned the antenna to match with 50Ohm impedance ? You can refer to this white paper regarding antenna tuning.

If you haven't done that, you can send your schematic and layout for review, also you can send your prototype boards to our office in Trondheim, we can do the tuning here for you.

If privacy is concerned, you can create a support portal account on our website, and can submit a support ticket there.

[kjell bystedt]

Since we have problem with range the test above was using evaluation kit to evaluate the range antenna /connection parameter is same as nordic suggested for evalaution kit 50ohm and 10ms /sample

We wounder if we could achive a better range using st balun component? /Kjell

[Hung Bui]

@Kjell: Having no packet drop with the distance of 40m is quite unrealistic. Bluetooth Low Energy designed for short range, low data rate communication. So you may have to think of using an external power amplifier. But then more power consumption should be expected.

If the matching network is well tuned, changing it to the balun doesn't help improving the RF performance or the range. The main purpose of the balun is to have smaller footprint, and BOM.

[kjell bystedt]

What distance could we we expect 30 m ? What type external power amplifier are you thinking about ? /Kjell

[Hung Bui]

Bluetooth Low Energy focused on application with the range of 10m indoor. Of course, there is no limit on the maximum range.

However, it's not possible to guarantee no packet drop, there could be many factor that affect the RF performance, especially interference from other 2.4GHz signal, such as Wifi.

We don't have a particular power amplifier to recommend, but any 2.4GHz power amplifier should help.

In addition, reducing the connection interval down to the minimum 7.5ms would help increase the sampling rate.