To which boards nRF cloud demo application can be downloaded?

[gorankecman]

Hello,

I was trying to connect my boards to nRF Cloud to evaluate it.
Setting up Gateway on the phone and on the web at nrfcloud.com was rather easy (just following getting started guide).
I have tried downloading sample code to Seeed Tiny BLE and nRF51822-mKIT, but I was not able to discover BLE device. Both have nRF51822 on them.
The question is which boards are supported (I could not find this info in the getting started document)? To which boards I can download nRF Cloud demo application?

Best regards,
Goran

[Bjørn Kvaale]

Hi Goran,

If you take a look at the nRF cloud getting started guide, you'll notice in Chapter 4 it says that you need an nRF51 or nRF52 dev kit. I have double checked with someone else & the nRF51 & nRF52832 DKs & the nRF52840 PDK should work out of the box with nrf cloud. Are you using the nrf cloud gateway app for Android or iOS? When you say "discover BLE device", does that mean you can't discover the BLE device on the smartphone app? Most likely you need one of the kits I mention above to get nrf cloud to work because the demo FW application for the nrf5x SoC was written for one of these dev kits.

If you followed the getting started guide correctly, my guess is that these two module boards you have are not supported & will not work out of the box.

Update: I believe it should be possible to run any BLE peripheral SDK example on your peripheral device (i.e. one of your two nrf51 modules) & you should still be able to connect to the central gateway device (e.g. nrf connect gateway smartphone application).

Kind Regards,

Bjørn Kvaale

[gorankecman]

Hello Bjørn Kvaale, 

Thank you for your support! 

Yes, I have seen that, but I was not aware that that was the actual name of the board. I thought it was referring to "any" nRF51 development kit. I am using Android app installed from the Google Play Store.

What I have meant with "discover BLE device" is that when I go to nrfcloud.com and enter an online gateway (which is my smartphone) and click on "Add Device", no device is found. I think that I have followed getting started guide correctly. 

Is the source code of demo FW available somewhere? 

Best regards,
Goran Kecman

[Bjørn Kvaale]

Hi Goran,

If you take a look at Chapter 4 of the nRF cloud getting started guide I posted, you can download the hex file of the nRF Cloud demo application in step 1a. It seems to me that the reason you are not discovering a BLE device is because you have not flashed the demo FW onto your nrf51 module. If I were you, I would download the hex file & program it onto one of your nrf51 modules & hopefully you should be able to discover the BLE device on the nrf cloud app for Android. Having talked to another application engineer, we believe it should be able to work on your module. Worst case, if it doesn't work with both of your modules, you might need to use one of the Nordic dev kits that I mentioned above in my answer.

Kind Regards,

Bjørn Kvaale

[gorankecman]

Hello Bjørn Kvaale, 

I think you did not understand me correctly. Of course, I have flashed demo FW hex from getting started guide to the board. That is what I meant when I have said that I followed getting started guide correctly. 

I was asking if the source code of the demo FW is available somewhere, not hex file (which is available in getting started guide). If I have the source code, I could look into it to try to find the reason why it is not working with my boards. 

Anyway, thank you for your support.

Best regards,
Goran Kecman

[Bjørn Kvaale]

Hi Goran,

 

Sorry about that. I am pretty sure the source code for the FW application is not available yet, as the blog post clearly states:

 

"As always, these IoT tools and the hosting of the IoT platform are provided for free for our developers. The code is also available on GitHub if you want to use nRF Cloud as a starter template for your own IoT service."

 

In the comments below, you can see:

 

"This was a little mistake in the way the article was written, the source code WILL be available, and is not available yet, as you may understand, it's quite an early stage and the source code will be released as soon as it has reached a very stable state"

 

I have searched both the nordic semi github page & the nordic playground github page & I found nothing related to nrf cloud.

 

I have sent you a private message regarding contacting your local Regional Sales Manager for updates on when this source code should be

available.

 

Kind Regards,

 

Bjørn Kvaale

[Bjørn Kvaale]

Quick update: I believe it should be possible to run any BLE peripheral SDK example on your peripheral device (i.e. one of your two nrf51 modules) & you should still be able to connect to the central gateway device (e.g. nrf connect gateway smartphone application). If I were you, I would test with a Nordic SDK example & see if you can connect to the gateway. That way, you have the source code in front of you.