Running observer/broadcaster example on BLE nano

[yoshimura]

Hello,

I bought a BLE nano and MK20 set with nRF51822 from RedBearLab. Love Nordic complete bluetooth solutions.

In general I am pretty new to Bluetooth development, still learning bluetooth protocol and tech stack. Trying to use the board as a nRF51822 development kit substitution. Correct me please, if I misuse terminology or confuse one concept with another.

Currently, my goal is running BLE nano as an observer listening to other Bluetooth devices broadcasting, e.g. beacons. Once certain broadcasted sequence presents, switching BLE nano's role as a broadcaster/beacon to broadcast sequence.

below nRF example seems doing what I want.

github.com/.../nRF51-multi-role-conn-observer-advertiser

To setup a minimal way to test this example, my plan is using mbed to download the example to the board then using software on other platform (like iPhone or Android) with the ability to send out HCI commands? Do I miss something?

Thank you for your input.

[Kenneth]

Hi, I suggest to use our lastest nRF5 SDK and S130 BLE softdevice, as you want to switch between central (scanning) and peripheral (broadcast) role concurrently. To get started developing check out some of our tutorials.

A good starting project might be the \ble_app_hrs_rscs_relay example in the nRF5 SDK. This example will relay data from a heart rate sensor to a central collector. You should simplify this example such that it only scan and parse received advertisement packets, but it doesn't need to connect. Instead the example can start to advertise if it receives specific advertisement packets.

This can be done concurrently in a TDMA fashion by the S130 softdevice automatically.

[yoshimura]

Hi Kenneth, thanks for your suggestion. The tutorial central is really helpful. Since I am not using Nordic dev kit, to use S130, do I have to remap memory layout in linker? I got the blinky example working by remapping pca10028 memory according to this link. devzone.nordicsemi.com/.../nrf51822-iram-and-irom-settings-for-v05-s130-sd.

If I use this memory layout, I will get "region RAM overflowed with stack" error when linking.

[Kenneth]

The compiler settings should fit with the settings in the specific softdevice release and version you are working with, and the variant of the nRF51822 you are using. I see no reason why you need to change the settings when working with another board, as long as the softdevice and IC variant is the same.

In the relase notes for each nRF5 SDK you can find which softdevice it is made for, the easiest is to use an nRF5 SDK that use the specific softdevice release you want to build your application on. Otherwize you will need to update the softdevice header files, and possible handle api changes. In such case the migration document in the softdevice release might be useful.

[yoshimura]

Hi Kenneth, by adding #define NRF_CLOCK_LFCLKSRC to customized bsp header, I got example compiled. Haven't gotten chance to test it. Thanks!