Thingy external connection

[Sheldon]

In order to connect an external sensor to the available pins, will we need to create our own version of the FW in order to communicate with the sensor? Or are there generic methods to communicate?

[endnode]

All right, if Arduino sketches are something what can solve your problem then it's definitely not worth looking for anything else;)

[Sheldon]

Adafruit Feather nRF52 Bluefruit LE - nRF52832. In reality, what we would like is to be able to install a module, with or without the Arduino portions. We are capable of coding the drivers and programs needed, just the entire FW is not needed. Further, it would be best for security and future upgrades if the FW were managed by Nordic, and included the latest Bluetooth Mesh when available. Then, a custom module could be written and added to the device for the FW to execute. And the existing OTA FW updating could be utilized when FW updates were available. At current, the Thingy:52 is really only useful for the existing functionality, which is fine, we would just like to have been able to add functionality. As an extra example, how would we utilize the BLE mesh and have a program monitor the Pressure and send a message to another BLE mesh device (Thingy:52) to flash the LED as a warning?

[Sheldon]

Indeed we could look at others, however, the Thingy:52 has such great promise. A nice package, full of sensors, easy to implement, OTA FW updates, however, without being able to add custom code we cannot build upon it. As BLE mesh networks come available, we would like to have sensor networks that communicate with each other, and have the ability to work without an App. Right now we would need to build the FW, and keep it synced with Nordic to add custom code.

[endnode]

Call me naive but this approach will never get you security, performance and power consumption wise where I would like to see any production embedded device.

[Sheldon]

Guess I am naive as well. FW, security, should be from hardware vendor, as is BLE mesh stacks, HomeKit support etc. Performance is split between vendor and custom developer both equally responsible. Performance directly affects power, assuming constant hardware, so they are linked. Just having a difficult time seeing the point of a SOC device that cannot be customized without taking the entire FW in-house and building a custom version. Handful of lines of code to read sensors, or I2C values, and send commands would solve a lot of use cases. Mesh networks should not require a hub to perform useful work, and in order to do useful work, does the device not need to be able to perform some custom work? Sigh. Right now I have a Thingy that requires an iOS device (or Android), to do anything, so a great sensor node, but what else can it do?