Will Nordic Work For My Application?

[eeboarder]

I'm working on a project where I need to recognize whether or not a wireless tag is within 5-10' of a stationary reader. I would develop the reader system using a module, and the tag (hopefully) would be off the shelf. The reader and tag combo would ideally be less than $50 combined.

I am not committed to a controller platform at this point. I just found Nordic. It looks promising. If anything, it appears to have more range than I would prefer. Are there any generic tags for purchase available? Is the range adjustable, possibly through antenna selection?

[eeboarder]

I've been digging more this morning on this application. I am liking the Arduino plus nRF24L01+ combo as a reader and the nRF51822 Bluetooth Smart Beacon Kit as the beacon or tag. I feel like this combination fits my application well.

A couple questions:

1. I want my Arduino-based host system to trigger functionality once the beacon has left a 5'-10' area. Is there an option to reduce the range or be able to determine (generally) whether the beacon has suddenly left the area?

2. Can the host (nRF24L01+) and the tag (nRF51822) automatically find each other without having to be manually paired or connected? I'm looking to have a stationary host, then anyone with a tag walk up and interact with the host.

[Petter Myhre]

I don't have experience with Arduino plus nRF24L01+. What protocol are you planning to use?

[eeboarder]

I was going to use a Arduino Red Board from Sparkfun to communicate through SPI to the nRF24L01+. The protocol would be Bluetooth (I think). I am still trying to understand more about the nRF24L01+ operation.

[Petter Myhre]

nRF24L01+ does not support Bluetooth.

[eeboarder]

Hey, Petter. There's some example code out there showing use of the nRF24L01+ using Bluetooth Low Energy. I just looked at the product spec, and it doesn't really list protocols.

Do you know what protocols the nRF24L01+ explicitly supports?

[eeboarder]

I'm now leaning more towards nRF51822 for both the reader and tag to natively support Bluetooth Low Energy. It just seems like that is the right protocol for this application, and I don't want to get to "hacky" with the nRF24L01+.

Is there anything in the BLE protocol that I can use to determine distance between systems? Like a register for signal strength or something similar?

Is there a way to adjust transmit power?