nRF51822 / S110 - Simultaneously Peripheral and Broadcaster?

[Daniel]

Hi,

Is nRF51822 / S110 capable of simultaneously being in peripheral (connected slave) and broadcaster (broadcasting non-connectable ads) mode? The datasheet says both roles are supported, however is not specific enough about the possibility to function simultaneously.

If not - do you have an idea if S120 would support combination roles (i.e. peripheral+broadcaster simultaneously)?

Thanks, Daniel

[Yalcin Akdogan]

A device is in peripheral role after (GAP) connection. A peripheral can connect to only one central, that leads me to decision: a peripheral can not be broadcaster on the same time.

i don't know the S210.

[Daniel]

Hi,

Thanks for replying. I'm a still a newbie in BLE. For my project my peripheral device need to talk to 2 master devices simultaneously and since BLE only supports that a peripheral connects to 1 master at a time, the only possibility I found is to put the device in peripheral mode and at the same time broadcast some non-connectable advertising packets (this part of the connection will be "one-way").

Anyway as far as I know - BLE standard supports such and ever more complicated scenarios. They call it multiple state machines - i.e. part of the link layer is in connected state as peripheral and another part is in advertising state. However, all of this is implementation specific - i.e. I hope some of the Nordic specialists enlighten us on the subject.

Thanks.

[Marc Nicholas]

It is perfectly legal in the Bluetooth 4.0 specification for the GAP to support multiple roles.

You are right that the specification calls for a Peripheral to only connect to one Central in the Peripheral-Central role relationship. But there's no reason why it has to stop "non-connectable" advertisements.

A certain other chip vendor even has demo code for this functionality.

[Daniel]

Hi Marc,

Thanks for answering and confirming. Completely agree with you - no need to stop non-connectible ads... hopefully in future software revisions it would be upgraded.

All other vendors I know don't have the wafer package option and the minimum footprint in plastic is at least 6x6 mm, which is too big for my project. So with some workarounds, nRF is probably still the best option for me, at least considering chips, which are available in commercial quantities at the moment.