How does 'Solar Sensor Beacon' example work without softdevice?

[nordicdev]

Hi,

I found the 'Solar Sensor Beacon' example from 

https://github.com/NordicPlayground/solar_sensor_beacon.

There, I found that no softdevice initialisation (nrf_sdh_ble_enable) has been used. Also, in the Target Options, I found that IROM1 starts from 0x0 and IRAM1 starts from 0x20000000 - which confirms, softdevice has not been used.

Is it possible to beacon out something without using softdevice?

Thanks.

[RK]

You can just read the code. Since beacons only send advertising packets which are trivially simple, it uses the radio directly. 

[nordicdev]

Hi RK, thanks for the reply. Can this be done only in the nRF52 or can this be run in nRF51 as well?

[RK]

Right there in the VERY FIRST LINE of the readme for the solar beacon link you sent it says 

 Bluetooth Low Energy based beacon implementation with sensors for the nRF52. Works with the nRF52 (tested), but is likely to work for the nRF51 as well (not tested). Power performance is, however, not expected to be as good for the nRF51.

so you could have answered either or both of your own questions quite easily