nRF8001 application current consumption

[Blisk]

Hi,

We like to develop a battery powered device with small current consumption which will communicate with mobile devices over BLE. It will comunicate with mobile device only from time to time when APP on mobile device will be turned ON. I understand that nRF8001 have to be connected with application microcontroller over SPI. We are looking for the lowest possible current consumption for complete device. Can both, nRF8001 and app controller be most of the time in sleep mode? Only if app on mobile device will be on - both of them will wake-up?

Thank you very much for your answer.

Best regards, Zdenko.

[Hung Bui]

Hi Blisk,

There is no way the nRF8001 can detect that the app on the phone is open or not. What you need to do is to let the nRF8001 advertises periodically and in your app you do scanning when it's open. After that you can establish a connection to the nRF8001.

This way the nRF8001 and the MCU will stay in sleep mode most of the time. The nRF8001 only wake up to send an advertising packet periodically. And the MCu is only woken up by the NRF8001 when there is an event, for example the connection establishment.

nRF8001 is a legacy product, I assume you are aware of our new product lines, such as the nRF51 and nRF52 which support better power management and new BLE 5.0 features.

[Blisk]

Hi, thank you very much for your answer. Can nRF8001 wake up and send an advertising packet periodically by it's own (independently from MCu)? In this situation is some pin on nRF8001 provided for connection to MCu interrupt pin for wake up MCu? Can we use nRF51 for the same functionality? Best regards, Zdenko.

[Hung Bui]

Yes, the RDYN will be pulled to ground to notify the MCU. Please have a look at chapter 7 in the nRF8001 PSpec.

Yes, the nRF51 and nRF52 are SoC and can do what nRF8001 can.